


Miracle Worker

by snowkatze



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Humor, Demon Summoning, Found Family, M/M, Mental Health Issues, college/university students, crowley befriends a university student, lots of banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-10 15:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20853860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowkatze/pseuds/snowkatze
Summary: After Nate and his friends have the brilliant idea to summon a demon, Nate's life goes off the rails - or maybe it goes on them again? Nate would like to fix his life, but sometimes he thinks not even a miracle worker could accomplish that...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to both fell-in-love-didnt-you from tumblr and my best friend for helping me with the editing!

Nate was cold, and a little bit drunk, and didn't particularly want to be here. He was lonely, too, but anywhere else he would have been lonelier. Rogers was right next to him, being a nuisance.

“Let's talk scars,” Rogers said, grinning and bumped Nate's shoulder. Nate rolled his eyes.

“Check out this scar on my elbow,” Rogers went on, shoving his arm in Nate's face. Nate ignored him and continued on into the underpass. Shelby spotted them from beside the only unpainted patch of the wall and called out to them. She was illuminated only by the faint light of the street lantern. Next to her on the ground Nate could make out some bottles and books. He lifted his hand, then thought better of it and put it down awkwardly. Rogers snickered at him.

“Why the fuck are you wearing a T-Shirt right now anyway? It's cold as shit,” Nate muttered, lowering head and trying to vanish deeper into his hoodie.

“It's all about the state of mind, my man,” Rogers responded, cocking an eyebrow.

“What, you're saying you're too _cool _for a sweater?”

Nate tried to contain his smirk.  
“Shut up.”

Rogers clapped him over the head, then dodged when Max threw him a spray bottle and let it crash into Nate. Nate watched it bounce of his chest and sighed.

“No, listen,” Rogers said as he picked up the bottle, “cool story, that one. Slipped in the shower.”

“Wow,” Nate deadpanned. “That's one to save for the grandchildren.”  
“Watcha talkin' 'bout?” Max asked.

“Scars. Gotta love scars, don't you? Don't you just love a good story about a scar?”  
“Not really,” Max said.

“Anyways, hey, wait, listen, pal,” Rogers slapped an arm around Nate's shoulders. Nate drew in on himself and stopped breathing for a second.

“You have an interesting scar there, right above your eyebrow.”  
Nate inhaled sharply and looked away.

“Why don't you tell us where you got it? How about it?”  
Nate rammed his elbow into Rogers' side just a tad too strongly to count as friendly.

“I told you to lay off about the scar,” he hissed, and Rogers lifted his hands in surrender. In that moment, Ted arrived and punched Nate's shoulder.

“Hey, suckers,” she said. “I'm almost out of gas, so y'all can count yourselves lucky that my car happens to also run on witchcraft and willpower, otherwise I couldn't have made it.”

“Hey, hey, hey, Ted, don't you wanna know where Nate got that scar above his eyebrow?”  
“Not really,” she said, then turned to Nate. “Where'd you get that scar?”  
“Accident,” Nate ground out between clenched teeth. He drew up the hood of his sweater and pulled it down so that it cast a shadow over his eyes.

“What kind of accident? Come on, throw me a bone,” Rogers said, delight twinkling in his eyes.

“None of your business.”  
“Guys,” Shelby chimed in. “Can we stop talking about scars? We happened to make an interesting find in the house of that old hag on Main Street.”

“And when you say find...?” Ted said, glancing at her sideways.

“I mean, she leaves the door unlocked when she goes for groceries. Horribly dangerous, really. Practically an invite to all sorts of shady figures.”  
“You know, common thieves. Cold-blooded murderers,” Max went on, then smirked. “Bored college students.”

“And how's that different from a common thief?” Ted asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Exactly.”  
Shelby looked at Ted smugly, then pointed to the pile of objects on the ground.

“We got some smelly books and my new best friend.” She took the porcelain doll and pressed it to her chest. “I call her-”  
“- creepy as fuck?” Rogers interrupted her with wide eyes.

“I was gonna say Charity. I'll keep her as my pet demon. Someone bugs me, she'll scratch their eyes out in their sleep. You like her?”  
Nate took a small step back.  
“Better say yes.”  
“S-sure.”  
Nate buried his hands deep in his pockets and sighed. Rogers knelt on the ground to flip through the books, and Nate took the opportunity to bring a few steps of distance between them. Then he breathed. Closed his eyes. He hated being here, but, well… There was nowhere else to go.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket, trying to look busy. There was a missed call from Kate. He quickly swiped away the notification and then kept swiping through his phone without looking at anything.

“Hey, Nate, wanna have another beer?” Max called.  
_Better not_, he wanted to say, but the words got stuck in his throat. He kept staring at the phone in his hands without looking at it and thought of a flat with too much space and the company of only a half-dead plant and quiet TV voices.

“Nate, you hear me? Don't be a pansy.”

His head was swimming, but he thought of the bar down the road of his flat, the company of a tired bartender following the same script every night and glasses that got too many to count. He pressed his nails into his palms in his pockets.

“Come on. Have some fun.”

And he felt a bit dizzy, but suddenly all he could think of was that house and the company of cursed photographs and a shell of a person.

“Sure,” he said and took the beer, pretending not to be haunted by ghosts. Shelby went back to the “peace” piece of graffiti she had started on the wall and Max went back to the six-pack on the floor, Rogers went through the books and Nate stood there. His eyes started burning. He swallowed repeatedly.

“Cold,” he said to Ted, and rubbed at his arms, “isn't it?”  
“Yup,” she said. Where could he go? Nate drew up his shoulders and circled the stack of objects on the ground. _Three years_, he thought. _That's too long to be haunted by a ghost._

“Hey, what's that?” Ted asked suddenly, and Rogers paused in turning the pages. His gaze fell on the drawing Ted had noticed.

“That weird pentagram thingy?” Rogers asked. “Seems to be for a demon summoning. Fuck, that hag's nuts.”

“Or is she?” Shelby said. “Why don't we find out?”  
“Uhm, sweetie?” Max asked, sounding unsure. “I love you and all, but -”  
“Let's summon a demon,” Ted grinned. Nate looked at Shelby's doll, then at the pentagram in the book. His head was starting to hurt.

“Why not?” he said.

“I wanna say this is a bad idea,” Max said, “but I also don't wanna say I think that demons are real, so… Go ahead.”

Shelby stepped away from the wall and knelt on the ground. She grabbed the book and started copying the circle from the book onto the ground with her spray can.

“Don't you normally have to do that with chalk?” Rogers asked and swallowed. “Or blood?”  
“We do need blood, actually,” Ted said, who had settled next to Shelby, reading the book.

“Great,” Max said, voice high. “That's just great.”

“Don't shit your pants. We just need a little bit. Drop of blood in the middle of the circle.”  
“Not it,” Rogers said. They were all a bit too inebriated to think about what they were doing.

“Nate!” Max said. Nate sighed. The world seemed to sway a bit, so he sat down, still putting a bit of distance between himself and the others. Shelby stepped past him to spray the pentagram.

“Naaaate,” Max repeated.

“Nope,” Nate said.

“Are you a wuss, Nate?” Max said and walked over to him. He sat down next to Nate, then leaned in his space. “Are you a scared little chicken?”  
Nate recoiled a little as the smell of beer hit his face.  
“Nope,” he said courtly. He leaned so far back that the hoodie fell off his head. Max grinned again. When he grinned, Nate sometimes got the unsettling feeling that he had too many teeth.

“What do you say, hm?” Max asked. “Why don't you do us a favor? Take one for the team?”  
Nate swallowed, eyes skirting over Max's face, and replied: “Why not?”  
“Exactly,” Max clapped him on the shoulder. “Why not?”  
Then he turned back to the others. “Nate volunteers for the blood thing.”  
Nate sighed, because of course he would. Shelby had taken to drawing little symbols into the pentagram. Nate closed his eyes and counted to ten in his head. Max had moved away. He could breathe again. He rubbed his arms again, this time not because of the cold.

“Which of you fucks can speak Latin?” Ted asked.

“Not it,” Rogers said again. Max looked at Nate. Nate shook his head.  
“I'll do it,” Shelby said just as she was finishing the pentagram. She picked up the book and started skimming the words. “No idea what this says, but I'll be able to pronounce it just fine. Hey, twig,” she said to Nate. “You're up.”

Hesitantly, Nate stepped forward and into the middle of the circle. Max handed him a small pocket knife and looked at him expectantly. Taking a deep breath, Nate drew the blade across his palm, and he hissed. The others were silently watching him. Nate let two drops of blood drip on the ground where they mixed with the dirt and the asphalt. Then he quickly stumbled back until he had left the circle.

“Now that,” Rogers said, “looks properly cult-ish.”

“Imagine,” Shelby giggled, “if we actually managed to summon a demon.”  
“Ha ha,” Nate muttered under his breath. “How fun.”

“Okay, okay,” Shelby said, getting her breathing under control. Then she started reading the spell out loud. Nate felt the hairs of his neck go up. As Shelby kept talking, mist suddenly started to move into the underpass and over the pentagram. Shelby didn't look up, but Nate suddenly felt colder and he suspected the others did, too. When Shelby finished, Nate held his breath, staring mesmerized at the pentagram.

“Bad idea,” Rogers said suddenly in drunken epiphany. “Summoning a demon? Baaaad idea.”

Nate liked Rogers because he told it how it was. He stumbled back a bit further.

“What's got you so scared, Nate?” Max said. “You gonna cry for your mommy?”  
If it hadn't been for the pentagram bursting into flames in that exact moment, Nate would have punched him in the face. Shelby cried out and let the book fall. Everyone shrank back.

“Oh, god,” Rogers groaned, “we're gonna die.”  
Fair enough, Nate internally agreed.

“This isn't funny, guys,” Max yelped. A figure had appeared in the circle, but it was hard to make out in the flames. _Well_, Nate thought, _at least I didn't slice my palm for nothing._

“Y'all are pranking me, right? It's a prank?”  
“I think you're overestimating my pranking skills,” Rogers said, voice thin.

The flames died down a little and the figure turned. It was a tall, lanky, man-shaped being with short red hair. Nate felt his heart beat speed up. He was frozen in spot. Under the piercing gaze of strange yellow eyes, Nate suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable. The isolation, usually like armour around him, suddenly felt like a weak spot. He wanted to scoot closer to Rogers but found himself unable to move.

“I think I had too much alcohol,” Nate managed to say. Right. That's all it was. Fever dream, alcohol-induced hallucination, cold shock. One of the sort.

“You just summoned a demon,” the being snarled. “You definitely had too much alcohol. And if this is a prank, I gotta say, I do not find it particularly amusssing.”  
On the last sibilant, the being showed its long, forked tongue. It could sense the spike of fear in the summoners at that and jumped on it.

“Why did you call me here, humansssss? I was just in the deepest dungeon of hell, having a lovely conversation with a damned soul, and I gotta tell you, I do _not_ like getting interrupted in the middle of a barbecue. It was just starting to get crispy, too.”

_Did that pentagram only summon or did it include a binding spell too? Shit. Fuck. Shittittyfucknut. They should have done more research before. No, scratch that, they shouldn't have done it at all. Shit fuck, he shouldn't have bailed on Sunday's church when his mom had that religion phase when he was twelve. Is drinking alcohol a sin? God fucking damn it. Oh. Is that blasphemy? Oh, no, that can't be good_.

“S-so first off,” Shelby said, “please don't turn us into human barbecue.”

“I'm going to hell,” Nate said.

“Oh,” the being said. “So you're the one with the-how'd you say-inquiry?”  
“That's not what I meant! I’m just – having a – a – theological crisis. Ha.”  
“That so? Then which of you mewling humans has called me here for what?”  
“Nate!” Max said, voice still high. “Nate – Nate's mom's dead.”

“Shut up,” Nate pressed out between clenched teeth.

“Y-yeah,” Shelby said. “She's like, super dead. And he – uhm, he – wants you to – to uhhh – br-bring her back.”

The being looked him up and down.

“That true?”

Nate felt cold all over and the thoughts kept racing through his head. They were gonna die anyway, weren't they? Maybe, if he distracted the being, the others could make a break for it. He thought, _am I really going to do this?_ Life was a little rough right now, sure, but he found on short consideration that he still liked it quite a lot. Enough, anyway. This was not the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Clause, or a genie. Whatever that thing was, it came from hell and it couldn't be trusted. But now that the being was here, they were in the deep shit anyway. _Might as well try to look like I know what I'm doing._

And then a thought hit him – _three years, that's too long to be a ghost._

“Sure. Yeah, that's me.”  
“Nate. Delighted to make your acquaintance,” the demon said, then waved. “Not really. Are you telling me that it's _your _fault I'm here?”  
Great. He wasn't backing down now.

“Yeah,” he said casually, “all me. They had nothing to do with it. Was my idea. My book. My spray can. Oh, and my blood, obviously. My summoning, all things considered, really.”

“Ah,” the being said. “Not a big fan of that-the summoning business.”  
There was a loud crash of thunder above them.

“Anyone ever tell you,” the being began, voice low, “that it does not make a demon happy to be summoned?”  
Suddenly, its head transformed into that of a big monster with long sharp teeth. It took one step towards them and let out a loud roar. Nate could hear Rogers scream, then saw all the others make a run for it out of the corner of his eye. But Nate couldn't move. He watched with morbid fascination. There was another crash of thunder. Nate looked death in its yellow snake eyes and felt shaken to his core. The being transformed back into its human form and Nate shivered.

“Huh,” the being said, “scared easily, these humans.”

It fixed its gaze on Nate.

“Not you, though. You're either very brave or very stupid. Same difference, I suppose.”

“Just figured, if you're gonna kill me, you're gonna kill me either way.”

“Seems to me like you've got no survival instincts, then.”

“So you'll kill me?”  
Nate swallowed heavily. The being looked at him for a moment, then slowly shook its head.

“Nah,” it said. “Truth is, I can't get out of this stupid pentagram. Here's the good news: you can let me out.”

“And why would I do that? I might be stupid, but not that much.”

“Well, you're still here, aren't you? You want something from me. How about we say, I take you up on that deal. You let me out, and I see what I can do about it.”  
“Are you sure I'm not just – high?” Nate would try anything to get this creature to go away.  
“Not from where I'm standing.”

Nate stepped a little closer.

“You were just scaring us, earlier, weren't you? You're – a fake. Bluffing. You've lied before. Why would I trust anything you say?” Nate was grasping at straws now.

“Well, I'm a demon, what'd you expect? You can always trust a demon to be dishonest.”

“A demon. You're a demon. Sure. Of course. This is happening. This is a real thing that's happening right now. Yeah, right, like I believe that. I'm high. That's the end of the discussion. You're a figment of my imagination, nothing more.”  
“Then what have you got to lose? Come on.”  
A shiver went down Nate's spine. _Come on. Don't be a scared little chicken._ _You gonna cry for your mommy?_  
“Right,” he said. “Nothing to lose.”  
“Then get on with it – there take the – your spray bottle, you said.”

“My – oh, right. Full disclosure, I'm a liar, too. At least when faced with impending doom.”  
“Fair. So, pick up _whoever's _bottle and obstruct one of these symbols. That'll do the trick.”

“Okay,” Nate said. “This isn't real. And if it is, I'm not kidnapping anyone, even if it's a demon.”

Nate went to get the bottle and hesitated for a moment, but then sprayed a straight line over one of the symbols.

“Excellent,” the demon said and smiled.

“Just so we're clear,” Nate replied, “you're not gonna kill me now, are you?”

“Maybe later.”  
Nate flinched and scooted back.

“Kidding, don't crap your pants.”

“Kate!” Nate said in sudden panic.

“What?”  
“My friend. Kate. I have to call her back. You can't kill me.”  
“Yep. That'll work. Any sadistic, cold-hearted demon will be moved to tears by that sob story. If I were you, I'd think of something better for the next one.”  
The demon stepped out of the circle and put his hands in his pockets. He sauntered over to the old book on the ground. Nate nearly sputtered – did demons _saunter_?  
“Where'd you get that book?”  
“My - fr-friends stole it from an old lady.”

Nate hated the way he stumbled over the word 'friends'.

“I hate to break this to you, kid, but your friends are assholes.”  
“Yeah, I know.”  
“You're different, though, aren't you? At least a little bit. What are you doing, hanging around those guys?”  
“'s complicated.” Nate kicked the spray bottle in front of him. “What about you? No offense, but you don't seem like the average demon.”

“Met many demons, have you?”  
“Well – uh – I mean -”  
“It's okay, kid. You're right. Don't really fit in with that lot.”  
A shadow fell over his eyes and he took a bracing breath. Nate looked at him curiously.

“So you're like me? An outsider?”  
“I'm not like you, boy. I'm – just another bully, really.” He kept looking at the book on the ground, almost like he'd forgotten Nate was still there. “I'm a demon, you know. It's in the job description.”  
“I thought you said you weren't like other demons.”  
“Oh, I am. Doesn't mean I belong – anywhere.” The demon sniffed. “It's cold, isn't it?”  
“That's what I've been saying!”  
“Yeah, we're not doing that.”  
The demon snapped his fingers and a little campfire appeared next to the books on the ground. Nate instantly felt warmer.

“The name's Crowley,” the demon said. “Anthony J. Crowley. What's yours?”  
“I can't give you my full name!"  
“Why not?”  
Nate spluttered. “Wha- you're a demon, you could - I dunno. I should have paid better attention in 10th grade religion class.”   
Crowley went to say something, then paused and contemplated it for a moment. “They teach you about demons in 10th grade religion class?”  
“How would I know? I never paid attention!”

“Fine,” Crowley scoffed. “Suit yourself.”

He sighed and turned to look at the fire. Nate couldn't stop feeling on edge. He couldn't help staring at Crowley. He felt like Crowley might attack him any moment.

“So, your mom's gone?”  
“Gone... Yeah.”

“Sorry, kid. I'm really not on speaking terms with the guys upstairs.”  
“She's not in heaven anyway.”  
“Oh, she's -”  
He looked pointedly downwards.  
“No, no. She's - alive. Technically. I guess.”  
“A coma?”  
“No. She's just… different.” Nate didn’t have a better word for it. “Has been for a long time.”

Crowley tilted his head slightly. “Why'd your friends say she was dead, then?”  
“Let's just say, you're not the only one I've lied to.”

The demon looked almost a little proud at that, but Nate was probably only imagining that. The whole thing, he remembered. He was imagining the whole demon.

“So your mum's sick?”  
“Yeah. Guess so.”  
“Okay, I'll help you. Let's do the bargain.”

Nate swallowed again. “Right.”  
“You must know what you're asking comes at a price. Are you really willing to pay that price? Willing to give everything? You can imagine how they treat you in hell. Or you can't, really. The things they do to you are unimaginable. Are you ready for that?”

Nate closed his eyes and thought of her, of how she used to be, back before three years ago, when she'd still smile for real.  
“Yes. Anything.”  
“Okay, good. I'll tell you the price, then. In exchange for my help...” Crowley paused and started circling the fire. The red light danced across his face. Nate held his breath in anticipation. “...can I crash at your place for a few days?”  
"Uuhh.” Nate stumbled for an appropriate response. “What?"

“You know, I'm bored. Thought about a change of scene. Get out for a bit.” Crowley picked at his nails then, and Nate felt his head spinning.

“And in return, you'll – heal my mum?” Nate asked disbelievingly. He was feeling a little bit brave tonight, but he was not bold enough to hope for anything. Life didn't work out that way. Not for him, anyway.

“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

“Okay. Then. You've got yourself a deal,” Nate said, trying to sound confident.

“Should we shake on it? Nah, that's unnecessary. Unless you don't think I'm a man of my word.”  
“I don't.”  
“Ouch. That how you treat your guests?”

“Just being honest.”

“Yeah. Right.” Crowley looked pensive for a moment. “You really shouldn't hang around the wrong sorts, boy.”  
“What if I just hung around you?”  
“Oh, I'm definitely the wrong sorts,” Crowley said.

“You know, you're actually pretty cool, considering...”

“What?” Crowley scoffed. “Considering I'm a demon?”  
“No,” Nate said and smirked, “considering you're a figment of my imagination.”  
Crowley didn't say anything, but the corners of his mouth twitched. He started stalking out of the underpass. “Come along, then. Let's get going.”

“What about the fire?”

Crowley rolled his eyes, then snapped his fingers. The fire disappeared. Nate stared at him in awe, then started to take after him.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, how'd you become a demon anyway? You just born that way, or... went to hell as a human and got a promotion?”

Crowley snickered. “We had, you could say, a sort of family feud some six thousand years ago up in heaven. Some of the angels... got kicked out. Fell. Became demons, I guess. We don't really talk about it.”  
“Sore subject?”  
“You could say so.”

They walked next to each other in silence for a bit, but Nate figured if he was having some crazy dream, he might as well get in a few fundamental questions about the Universe, capital ‘U’ and all, while he was at it.

“So how old are you?” That was a safe question, right? At least, Nate hoped so.  
“Some six thousand years. The angels were created in the Beginning.”

“You're pretty young then, for a demon, are you? If you're not billions of years old?”

“No, no. All angels were created some six thousand years ago. Everything was. Or angels were before, really. Before time.”

“Are you seriously telling me,” Nate said and turned to Crowley, walking backwards, “that the Universe is six thousand years old?”

“Yeah, about.”

“And wait, wait, wait – so God is a thing?”  
“Don't call Her a thing. She wouldn't like that.” Crowley looked upward for a second, then thought better of it and stared ahead again.  
“Jesus Christ. Wait.”  
“Yep. He was real, too. I was there. Met him, even. He deserved better.”

Nate frowned, but nodded. Then he thought about the age of the earth again.

“Okay, now hold up a second – what about dinosaurs, then?”

Crowley practically howled at that, if snake-like demons could howl. “I think She just wanted to confuse you. Best not to speculate, really. It's all part of the blasted ineffable plan.”

Nate turned back around. He could see the house at the end of the street.

“Just so you know, I'm not believing a single word you say.”  
“That so?”  
“Demons lie.”

That was one thing all people (not just those who attended religion class) just knew.   
“Aha. Just so you know, that is incredibly rude of you.”

“The earth-six thousand years old? Please. I don't believe demons."  
“Exactly, I'm a demon! How am I the one who's wrong? Your science teacher would have denied I even exist! I'm the one who was there.”   
Crowley kicked a rock into the bushes. Nate decided he needed to think about that a lot more and didn't bother to reply. They reached the house, and he started to walk down the stairs that led to the door of the basement.

“I live in my Aunt's basement,” he explained. “She's always away on business, though, so we don't have to worry about what to tell her.”  
“What, you wouldn't tell her that you're housing a demon?” Crowley said and smirked.

“She'd just think that I'd gotten into a cult. Not that it'd surprise her.”  
Nate opened the door, and they stepped into the basement that functioned as Nate's flat. Crowley looked around curiously and Nate suddenly felt embarrassed about how messy everything was. Crowley pushed open the first door on the right and sauntered into Nate's bed room.

“So this is your torture chamber then?” Crowley said conversationally.  
Nate could feel his face going red when he saw what had caught Crowley's eye.

“Ah...”  
He drew up his shoulders and cautiously settled on his bed, keeping his gaze on the demon.  
“That's Miss Brown. Not that I named her after my second grade English teacher, that'd be embarrassing.”

He laughed nervously, a bit ashamed of the state the plant was in.  
“Oh, that's clever,” Crowley said, examining the plant on the window sill, “naming your plant after someone you hate and then torturing it. I should have thought of that."  
“I don't hate M- never mind. This is Miss Brown the Third, actually. They, you know... don't stick around long.”  
Crowley leaned in closer and touched the sad looking leaves of the plant.  
“Damn right they don't,” he said.

Nate closed his eyes on the bed and suddenly realized he felt unbearably tired.

“Listen here,” Crowley said, and Nate jerked up, but the demon was still looking at the plant. “Don't think it has gone unnoticed how much your performance has been slacking, Misssss. If you don't shape up and soon, well…you know there's always Miss Brown the Fourth.”  
Nate stared at him.

“Okay,” he said and decided it was one of those days where he would just accept anything weird that happened. There was a demon in his bedroom – it didn't get weirder than that. Except that the demon was threatening his plant. But sure.

“I gotta be honest,” Nate said and leaned back against the headboard of the bed, “this was not what I expected a demon to look like. You know, more horns and red eyes and stuff. Not that the yellow eyes aren't dope or anything!"  
“Ah well. Sometimes I turn into a giant snake, if that helps.”  
Nate smiled. “Dude, what the fuck, why didn't you mention that earlier? That is so cool!”  
“Thought the eyes might have given it away.” Crowley rubbed his temple and looked down at the plant. Maybe Nate shouldn’t have said anything.   
“I kind of thought that were cat eyes,” Nate mumbled.  
“Cat eyes?!” Crowley’s attentions turned back to Nate.   
“Geez, I'm not good with animals, okay?”

Nate had failed biology and hated every zoo trip, so at least he had somewhat of a genuine excuse here.

“Not good with animals, not good with plants, and from what I've seen, you don't do too well with humans either.” Crowley looked at him for a long moment. “Why do you hang out with these people?” he asked, with a voice softer than before.

“I just... I had a best friend. Kate. A long time ago. She was brilliant, she was so smart - I guess I just went - too slow for her.” Crowley made a soft noise at that. “Wasn't a great year for me. Had to repeat the school year. That's why we didn't see each other anymore. And then she left for Los Angeles. Left me here.” Nate gestured to the room around him.

“That friend you had to call back? Doesn't seem that long ago, then.”

“Yeah, that was a dumb idea. I'm not doing that. It's in the past. I have other... _friends_... now.”  
“And why those guys of all people?”   
“I'm not drunk enough for this conversation.”  
Crowley smirked. “But drunk enough to imagine a demon?”  
“Ha! You got me there,” Nate said quietly and fumbled with the covers. “It was just... high school, really. Everyone was fake. And I couldn't…trust anyone. I didn't tell anyone anything. I still don't.”

He let out a bitter laugh. “Don't even know why I'm telling you this. Because you're not real anyway, probably. But... ha. The people in my school. Pretentious bastards. And then I met Rogers, and he was - at least he was real, right? Honest. I could take him at his word, even when his words were bad. If that makes sense. Probably not. But you know, right?”

Nate drew his knees to his chest. “Funny story, how we met. He said to me, 'I don't like your shoes', and I don't know. I guess I liked that.”

Nate looked up again and saw that Crowley was just watching him, listening. “I suppose I just couldn't trust anyone.”

Nate thought he could hear the demon mumble, 'Then why do you trust me?', but then decided that he was imagining things, which, obviously, he was.

“Not with what happened three years ago,” Nate continued.

“What happened?” Crowley asked quietly.

“Oh, you know. We don't really talk about it.”  
“Sore subject, right.”  
For a moment, the silence was heavy between them.

“You can sleep on the living room couch,” Nate said then and was certain that he'd wake up the next morning to find it had all been a fucked-up dream. “It's just across the hall.”

He heard Crowley move through the room quietly.

“Hey,” he said quickly, “I got drunk at a party and passed out on the lawn three days ago.”

Crowley paused at the door.

“Tell me honestly,” Nate went on, “am I still there?”

But Crowley just smiled at him - or at least it looked like it in the dark - and quietly closed the door behind himself.

* * *

Nate blinked at the faint sunlight coming in through the window. Right. He didn't feel particularly hungover but he knew that he'd had a few drinks too many last night. Of course he'd had too much to drink since the day before was the day that – right. For a moment, he was afraid that the agony and the loneliness and the regret would spill over, but then he took a deep breath and pushed it all deep down. Another day, another chance to fuck things up.

Nate stumbled into the bathroom, as always trying to rub the tiredness out of his eyes and never managing it. He went to brush his teeth for as long as he could endure it, which was never more than a few seconds. His body nudged him and said, _how about breakfast? _He stared at his reflection, at the messy brown hair, at the deep rings under his eyes and the blasted scar above it. His body punched him in the stomach. Spots of black appeared before his eyes. _Right, _he thought. _Breakfast._

He walked into the living room, still not able to see properly. He walked past the couch in the direction of the kitchen. When he realized what he'd seen from the corner of his eyes, he walked a few steps backwards. There was a man lying on his couch. The same man he'd mistaken for a demon the day before. The man blinked. Nate blinked back.

“Those are contact lenses, right?” Nate asked.

The man frowned. “These are my eyes.”  
“Don't bullshit me. You're just a – a normal human being. With a rare eye disease, maybe.”  
“Did you miss the part where I appeared out of thin air because you and your idiot friends summoned me yesterday?” the guy scoffed.

“Nope,” Nate said, voice high, “never happened.”

“Oh, it happened.” The man picked at his nails. “I was there.”  
“No. No, you weren't. Come to think of it, you're not even here right now.”  
Nate started to walk towards the kitchen again.

“Are you serious right now?” the man called after him, agitation clear in his voice.  
“Oh, almost thought someone said something. But actually, I didn't hear anything. Because there's no one here!” Nate yelled back.   
“You're really doing this.”  
“La, la, la, la -”  
“Oh for someone's-”  
Nate went to grab the door knob, when suddenly, he heard a snap of fingers and the door knob was gone. And the door. Nate whirled around.

“Did you just vanish my door?”  
“You think someone who's not a demon could have done that?” Crowley asked and jutted his jaw out.

“Give me back my door!”  
“Not until you've admitted it.”

Nate rolled his eyes, but internally, he was screaming because his bloody _door _had just bloody _vanished_.

“Fine,” he said. “You're a demon, and you're here.”

“That's all I wanted to hear,” the demon said and snapped his fingers again. Nate's kitchen door was back. _That's good, that's great, I have a door, everything is going fine, everything is the way it's supposed to be_, he thought. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a box of cereal off the shelf. His stomach growled, which Nate was sure translated to '_hurry up and get me food'. _So he poured a bowl of dry cereal and grabbed a spoon. The food tasted like nothing, but his stomach stopped growling, so, hey, that was something.

_There is a demon in my living room. That's fine._

It was decidedly not fine, but Nate was like that dog sitting in a house on fire from that comic panel, and he decidedly did not care anymore.

“For your information,” Crowley said once Nate had stepped back into the living room, “this won't do.” He gestured broadly to the sofa.

“Oh?” Nate said tiredly. “I don't really have anything else.”  
“Yeah, I can take care of that, but there's no space in here with all this clutter.”  
“I guess.” Nate hesitated. “I could clean?”  
“Brilliant deductive reasoning skills you've got there.”  
“Oh god,” Nate said and started pacing the room. “Fuck, I should stop saying that, right? Oh fuck, let's go with that. Cleaning? This has never happened before. I have no idea what I'm doing.”  
“I feel like it should be concerning that you're more freaked out by the prospect of having to clean than by meeting an actual demon. But, you know, demon. Never concerned about anything, me.” Crowley’s voice somewhat betrayed him, but Nate was still pacing enough to make a hole in the ground.  
“It's just,” Nate stopped to look at the horrid mess on the floor, “I don't even know where to _start_.”

“I'd start with the trash, if I were you,” Crowley said and snapped his fingers from where he was lounging on the couch. A trash bag appeared in Nate's hand.

“Ha,” Nate said nervously “If you can do that, why don't you just – snap the mess away?”  
“Too much effort,” Crowley said. “Besides, it's your flat.”  
“Right.”

Nate looked uncertain for a moment, then started to pick up the empty beer bottles, tissues and pizza cartons from the floor. Afterwards returned and looked around, but it was still hard to make out a free spot on the floor.

“Next the books,” Crowley drawled. “I have a friend who would have a heart attack if he saw what you did to them. Well…not like he needs the heart anyway.”  
“Your friend doesn't need a heart? Sure,” Nate said as he began gathering his text books that were littering the floor, “just gonna roll with that.”  
“Me too, you know. This is just a body, after all.” Crowley pulled at his shirt for effect.  
Nate put the books on the table in front of the sofa. “Wait a second – I don't like the way you phrased that. Please don't tell me you're – possessing someone else's body. Cause that's like. Not cool.”  
“No, no, this is _my _body,” Crowley corrected, a cracked smile pulling at his lips. “And I've kept it in quite a good condition, if I do say so myself. And it really wouldn't do for me to get discorporated, what with me being on Hell's bad side right now and all that.”

Nate paused. “You're not in Hell's good graces? What is that supposed to mean?”  
Crowley sighed dramatically. “So, firstly, Hell doesn't have good graces or good books or anything of that sort.” Crowley idly rubbed the tattoo over his temple. “Second, I did some…stuff... they didn't really agree with. Rebelled a little bit.”

“You'd think they'd encourage rebellion.”

“Right? But, no, there's a good and a bad kind of rebellion, apparently, and the bad kind is if it's against them. And it's not their kind of bad.” Crowley’s brows drew together as he paused and added, “Come to think of it, Hell also has a good and a bad kind of bad.”  
Nate carried the books over to the shelf, then examined the mess and found that now, there were mostly clothes. He went to get a laundry basket and then started gathering the clothes. Crowley had his eyes closed so long that Nate couldn't tell if he was watching him or sleeping.

“So that's why you don't belong?” Nate asked, quietly enough that if Crowley was asleep, he wouldn’t hear it.

“Yes. Well, no. I never really did. I mostly got by... lying to them.”

“You'd think they'd encourage that, too.”

Nate scratched his head. What was Hell supposed to be if not a place where sin flourished?  
“Yeah, you know. I did the bad king of lying,” Crowley confessed.  
“Hypocritical bastards, then.”

“Sounds about right.”  
Nate put the laundry basket next to the washing machine in the kitchen and decided to take care of it later. When he came back, the only mess left in the living room were the countless papers lying all over the table. Nate looked at it for a moment.

“Yeah,” he drawled, “I'm not even gonna _attempt _that.”  
He scooped up the papers and put them in a mostly empty drawer next to the book shelf.

“That was faster than I expected,” he said.

The room looked nicer now. Scarily nice. Too nice.

“Fantastic,” Crowley said. “Now it almost looks like this space is inhabited by a human being and not an ogre.”  
Nate glared pointedly and placed his hands on his hips.

“I thought you liked brutal honesty,” Crowley joked.

Nate grumbled silently at that. Crowley got up and looked at the battered couch.

“Yeah, this thing needs to go,” he said, though it was mostly to himself. He snapped his fingers and the sofa disappeared. In its place was a new, black bed that extended long enough for the people who sat on it to comfortably stretch their legs.

“Dude!” Nate exclaimed in awe, stepping closer to the bed. He slowly ran his fingers across the plush material, then carefully settled down on it. Crowley sat down next to him and snapped his fingers again. Nate flinched, but it was only the TV turned on.

“I have some horror movies, if you like,” Nate ventured. Did demons enjoy horror movies? That wasn’t a question he’d thought to ask in religion class.  
Crowley made a non-committal noise. He snapped his fingers a few times to change the channels. Nate watched in amazement how Crowley eventually settled on the Looney Tunes. Suddenly, Nate's phone beeped. He had a message from Rogers, asking if he wanted to join the gang for another get together tonight behind the railroad station. For a moment, he considered it, but then he heard Crowley snicker next to him, and he shot a quick text back to decline. He relaxed against the headboard and started watching too.

Nate should have felt scared, or at least bewildered, but all he really felt was safe. And it was strange, because there was a demon in his living room who was laughing at cartoons, but for the first time in years Nate really felt like everything was going to be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

At some point, Nate's body began nagging him again. He got up to get some food and returned with two plates of tater tots that he had put in the microwave. He held one of the plates out to Crowley, but he just stared at Nate with mild disdain.

“Ew,” he said. “I'm not eating that.”

Nate rolled his eyes, then something occurred to him.

“Oh,” he said. “Don’t tell me you eat- “he paused for a moment, then lowered his voice “-souls?”  
“What?! No!” Crowley sputtered, appalled.  
“The blood of a virgin?”  
“I swear to Someone-”

“Crickets?”  
“Please stop,” Crowley groaned.  
“Maggots?” Nate continued.  
“I'm begging you.”

“Toads?”  
“I don't technically need to eat, okay? But when I do, I eat human foods just fine.” Crowley rolled his eyes and looked back at the television.

“Some humans eat toads,” Nate said defensively. When Crowley grunted, Nate resigned to just eat the tater tots himself. “Right, just a body. I remember.”  
“I've made a habit of it, though. Eating, I mean,” Crowley clarified at Nate’s confusion. He cast a watchful eye over Nate’s thin form. “You should, too.”  
Nate tilted his head in irritation.

“I – I have a habit of eating. I'm literally eating right now.”  
“You call that eating? That thing is barely edible.” To prove his point, Crowley poked at a tater tot until it was mush under his finger.  
Alarm bells started going off in Nate's head, but he slowly said: “I guess... I could – make something. I mean. There's nothing in the kitchen, really.”  
Crowley snapped his fingers again and, on the table, some food items appeared. Nate sighed, then picked up as many items as he could carry in two arms. Once he was in the kitchen, he turned to see that Crowley had followed him. A little helplessly, Nate looked at the food items he had put on the counter.

“Now watch,” Crowley said, picking up a red pepper. “I know you might not have seen this in many, many years, but I think if you try to remember _really _hard it will come back to you that this is a _vegetable._”

“Yeah, thanks,” Nate quipped, turning up his nose. “I got that.”

“Think you can whip something up with that?”  
“Whip? Like... whipped cream?” Nate said alarmed.  
“Figure of speech.”

“Uhm... sure,” Nate lied. “Can't be that hard, can it?”

Crowley started walking back into the living room and Nate opened the pack of spaghetti. Spaghetti is easy. Even he should be able to do that. He took a pot that his aunt had given him a long time ago (but had never been used) and put some of the pasta in it. Carefully, he turned up the heat and then stared at the spaghetti. Something was supposed to happen. He wasn't entirely sure what.

Suddenly, the spaghetti caught fire, and Nate let out a loud yelp. Crowley came rushing back into the kitchen.

“This is not supposed to happen, is it?” Nate said panicked.

“Of-bloody-course it's not supposed to happen!” Crowley yelled back. Nate rushed to the sink and grabbed a glass to fill it with water.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Crowley said and waved around. He scrambled for a towel and threw it over the pot.

“Now suffocate,” he hissed at it. The fire went out.

“What the ever-loving _fuck _was that?” Crowley growled.

“I – I – uhm -” Nate started stammering.  
“Did that look right to you?” Crowley fumed, poking the singed ends of the pasta.

“How would I know? I've never done that.”

Crowley huffed out an exasperated breath.

“Ever heard of a handy little thing called reading the instructions?”

“I was freaked out enough by having to cook something. You can't ask me to use my brain, too!”

“How on earth have you survived this long?”

“I reckon it's a mixture of luck and bad luck,” Nate answered, looking around at the state of the kitchen. “Like, I'm surviving, but barely.”  
“Is it really bad luck when it's your fault, though?”

Nate heaved a deep breath and looked at the pot. “Fair,” he conceded. “So, what do you say? Should we just order pizza?”  
“No, no, no. Here.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and the burned spaghetti vanished. Next to it, a new pack of spaghetti appeared. “Try again,” Crowley said. “And use water this time,” he added threateningly, though Nate heard no real venom behind it.  
“I thought you didn't want me to use the water.”  
“Not to put out the fire, obviously,” Crowley scowled. “For the cooking. The plan does _not _include another fire.”  
An hour later, Nate had procured something that nearly resembled food. He expected Crowley to make a mean comment and reject the food, but he didn't say anything and they ate together while watching more cartoons.

“Yeah,” Nate said, “never doing that again.”  
“Why not?” Crowley asked through a mouthful of food.

“Uhm, because we almost died?”   
“_You _almost died. _I _almost got discorporated.”  
“Semantics,” Nate replied. “I get stabbed, I die. You get stabbed, your soul or whatever leaves your body. Potato, po-tah-to.”

“Okay, but you know, we didn't.”  
“What?”  
“Die. So, trying again wouldn't be so bad, would it?”  
Nate considered that for a moment while pushing around stray noodles on his plate. “I suppose you're right.” Nate was astonished to find that maybe he really would try again. He didn't have the greatest track record with second chances. But maybe, no matter how impossible it seemed, there was such a thing as starting again.

“Didn't you want to call someone?” Crowley asked, not looking up from his phone.

“What? Who would I call?” Nate couldn’t recall mentioning needing to call someone. The last person he had phoned was his aunt, and even that was weeks before. Sometimes, he spoke to the occasional telemarketer, but they hadn’t called the house phone in a while. Nate was sure he was blacklisted.   
“Keith, Katherine, Kathy. Something of the like.” Crowley tapped incessantly at his phone.  
“Kate,” Nate swallowed. “Her name is Kate.”  
“Kate and Nate,” Crowley said. “Funny.” His puff of laughter seemed genuine, but Nate felt a lump forming in his throat.

“It was.”  
“So call her.”  
“It's not as easy as that.”

Crowley looked up from his phone, and the condescending gaze cast towards Nate made Nate feel a tad of discomfort. “You thought you were about to die and the last thing you wanted to do was call her. So, I'd say, it is that easy.”  
“I don't -” Nate started. “I can't -” he tried again, but what was there to say?   
He got up and fled the room. In his own room, he sat on the bed and pulled his phone out. He put it on the far corner of the bed and proceeded to stare at it like it was going to jump him. He’d done lots of scary things for one day: cleaning the living room, cooking spaghetti, thinking of calling an old friend. That one seemed harder than anything else. Nate couldn't keep running from his life forever, could he?

Or, perhaps more importantly, did he want to? Did he want to flee and celebrate small victories for the rest of his life? And it was so short, too (at least compared to a nearly immortal being that was over six thousand years old). He didn't get multiple millennia. He got maybe a century, if he was lucky. (And he never really was.)

Nate picked up the phone and, before he could think about what he was doing, hit redial. He anxiously held his breath waiting.

“Hello? Kate Johnson speaking.”

'How about it, then?' Nate wanted to ask. 'Second chances?'  
“It – it's me.” Nate wanted to hit his head. “Uhm. Nate.”

He heard Kate draw in a breath. “Yeah, I know. I've still got your number saved in my phone, you know?”

“Then why that weird introduction, like we're complete strangers or something?”  
“Oh,” she laughed, “I panicked. Didn't expect you to call, is all.”  
“I just – sorry I didn't call. Earlier. Been…busy.”

Nate swallowed guiltily.

“Nate, please,” Kate said softly, “don't lie to me.”  
“Sorry, sorry. Well. You know the truth.” He waited a moment. “You still know me better than anyone, after all.”  
“I'd like to hear it.”  
“I was, uhm…scared. S'pose that wouldn't be so bad, if I wasn't a coward, too.”

Nate laughed, though it was pitiful and at his own expense.

“Well, you picked up the phone some time, so it's all okay.”  
“Yeah.”  
There was silence for a moment. They hadn't talked in so long.

“I just wanted to say, I'm gonna be in England. Soon. My flight goes tomorrow, actually. I was gonna give you a heads up, but you know…”

Kate laughed shortly, and it seemed to Nate like maybe he wasn’t the only one that was scared.  
“Yeah. Sorry.”

Was that all he could say? Sorry? Sorry didn’t cover a third of what he wanted to say.  
“I was just – did you want to meet up? I mean I get if you're... _busy_.”

Nate let out a chocked laugh. “No, no. That's great. Yeah. Let's do that. You could come over. I'm gonna have some friends over.”  
“Friends? Oh, that's great. Looks like you're doing well.”  
“I am.”

_No lies_, Nate thought.

“Could be better,” he said.

“Well, I can't wait to see you,” Kate said. He could hear the smile in her voice. “I gotta get back to my essay, now, though, so -”

“Right, right.”  
There was another pause.

“Bye, Nate.”  
“Wait -”

More silence.

“It's really good to hear your voice,” Nate confessed.

Kate was silent for a few seconds. Then, “Yours, too.” She hung up quickly afterwards.

Nate stared at the phone in his hands. He felt the exhaustion of someone who had just climbed a path up a hill. But he had a feeling that the path would go downwards again, soon. Maybe just around the corner.  
  


When Nate went to water Miss Brown the next day, he was astonished to find that the brown spots on it had vanished. Alongside one of the leaves, a little blossom had appeared.

“Woah,” he said in awe. “Yesterday you didn't even have any buds. I didn't know you could. Wicked.”  
He took a photo of the plant and went to post it on Instagram. He considered the caption for a moment.

_Hung out with a demon for a day and now my skin is clear and my crops are thriving. Literally._

Nate considered it for a moment, then deleted the part about a demon. It was too weird for Instagram. He walked past the nice couch where Crowley still seemed to be dozing and into the kitchen. Miraculously, there was milk in the fridge. Nate poured himself a bowl of cereal and then checked his Instagram again. There were two comments on his plant photo. One was from Rogers.

_Lol sick plant_

Nate felt his stomach drop when he read the second comment.

_Oh, so you're alive after all? And doing great? Guess that means you feel finally up to working on our group presentation_

_Shit. _Nate had completely forgotten about the group presentation ever since he had muted Lily and Erica on WhatsApp. He took a deep breath, then he opened the group chat.

_Hey_, he wrote, _sorry for being a shithead._

_All good, _Lily replied. _So long as you don't disappear on us again._

_Nah_, he answered. _That's a magic trick I can only pull once._

_So, we've all been obviously dying to work on this project, _Erica wrote. _Let's meet up._

_How about Tuesday? _Nate suggested.

_Hell no! I gotta study, _Erica wrote.

_Yeah if I listen to one more of Mr. Miller's lecture recordings my brain is gonna ooze out of my ears, _Lily wrote.

_So early? _Nate wrote frowning.

_Are you one of these people who can study five minutes before the exam and can pass? _Erica wrote.

_Yeah the exam is on Wednesday, _Lily answered at the same time.

“Oh shit,” Nate said.

_Zito gi id6cy_, he wrote.

He could barely read the reply _I wonder if he's trying to spell 'idiocy' _before he flung his phone onto the bed and rushed into the living room. The table stood unusually blank.

“Where the fuck is my mess?” he asked and wrung his fingers in his hairs.

“Drawer,” Crowley murmured, barely opening his eyes.

As quickly as he could, Nate scrambled for the papers and text books.

“Laptop,” he rasped. “Laptop.”  
He looked around helplessly and walked back into his room, where he found the laptop on the floor.

“Right, right, right, right, right,” Nate muttered in irritation and piled all his findings on the living room table.

“What are you -” Crowley started.

“Don't talk to me for ten hours,” Nate said, then frowned and added, “please.”  
Crowley gave him a brief nod, and Nate heard the door close. Right, right, right. He could do this. There were still plenty of hours between now and Wednesday. At least, if he cut some sleep. But who needed sleep anyway?

Over the next few hours, Nate delved deep into the topic of _Toxicology. _At some point, he started hearing faint guitar sounds from the other room, and, at another, a cat screeching, but he barely spared it a second thought. He continually spread the papers and books all around him to keep an overview. He found an energy drink at the bottom of the fridge and spilled it in his haste on one of the papers. He kept writing, and reading, and writing, and reading, and at some point, his head started to become heavy.

“This looks like a crime scene,” Crowley blurted out upon entering the room.

“It is,” Nate replied, letting his head fall onto the table.

“Who got murdered?”  
“Me,” Nate answered, “clearly.”  
Curiously, Crowley inspected one of the papers.

“Poisons?” Crowley said. “If you wanted to kill someone, you could have just told me. Poison is so... uncreative.”  
“No, no, no – the opposite of that. It's forensic science. My major.”  
“Huh,” Crowley said.

“So how do you become a demon?” Nate said conversationally. “Is there maybe a job position open? Because that's definitely where my career is going after that test.”  
“’How do you become a demon?’” Crowley mocked. “Oh, let me just check the job requirements. Have you, perhaps, recently taken a bubble bath in pool of burning sulphur? Or fallen from a really high place? No? Then don't even bother sending in an application, boy.”

Crowley stepped over the papers.

A few minutes later, Nate could hear a crash from the kitchen, but he didn't even look up from his textbook. Sometime around two in the morning, Nate had trouble keeping his eyes open, and he stumbled into his room where Crowley sat comfortably on his bed.

“Okay, Mr. Crowley,” he said with half-open eyes, “I'm ready.”  
“For what? Sleep?”  
“To make a deal. Do I need to cut my hand for this?” Nate glared at his left hand and considered the force needed to chop it off. “Cause I my hand still hasn't healed from that last time.”  
“What are you on about?” Crowley asked, shifting to the edge of the bed near where Nate was still inspecting his hand.  
“I give in. You've convinced me. My soul, you can have it.”  
Crowley sputtered.

“Eh- excuse me?” he demanded. “I never asked you for your soul.”  
Nate glowered. “You were just too polite to ask. You're a demon. You eat souls for a living. It's what you do. No need to be embarrassed about it.”  
“I have never in my entire life been so offended.”

Crowley did look taken aback, but Nate hardly thought this was the most upset Crowley, demon of Hell, wandered of earth for six millennia, was most offended by Nate.  
“Come on. You can have it, in exchange for -” Nate paused and took a deep breath. “A cup of coffee. If that's not too much to ask. I'll sacrifice my soul, no problem. No hesitation.”  
“They're $3.50 at the petrol station,” Crowley sighed. “Why don't you sacrifice that?”  
“I'm offering you something way more valuable than three dollars!”  
“Oh, that's funny! You think your soul's worth more than that?” Crowley genuinely threw his head back in laughter. “I could buy a cheaper soul at Olive Garden.”  
“Please?” Nate said.  
Crowley rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers, making a cup of coffee appear out of thin air. It looked exactly like what a petrol station coffee should look like, and Nate grabbed it, smiling faintly.  
“Thank you. You're the best demon I know.”

And he was out of the room in a whirl.  
“The only demon you know!” Crowley yelled after him.

At seven in the morning, Nate was lying on the floor. Crowley was on the sofa next to him.

“Please, Crowley,” Nate begged.

“No.”  
“Oh, this is cruel. This is more than cruel.”  
Crowley didn't bother to reply.

“You're really high up in hell, aren't you? Well known for your skills in torture.”  
There was another moment of silence.

“Oh my god,” Nate groaned. “I mean, can I still say that? Feels weird to say it now. Especially when you’re in front of me.” Nate's head was pounding. “Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you? Is this because I accused you of soul-eating? I take it back. I take everything back. Please just give me another coffee.”  
Crowley stood up, and Nate could see him do a strange movement with his hand, but suddenly, he felt even more tired than before. So tired that he closed his eyes immediately.

When he opened his eyes again, he felt like he'd blacked out for a few seconds, but bright light was coming in through the window. Crowley was still on the sofa, only now Nate was also lying on it.

“Hey,” Nate slurred. “What did you do to me? You're not allowed to use your crazy witch powers on me.”  
“Witch powers?!” Crowley cringed. Then his voice turned soft. “Look, what you're doing there - staying up so late - it's not healthy.”

“Yeah, well, you do what you gotta do,” Nate replied.

“You don't seem to care about much,” Crowley said cautiously. “Why about this?”

“Ha,” Nate said. “Funny thing, that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I need to pass uni for my mom.”  
“She wants you to graduate?”  
“Oh, she couldn't care less, really. It's all, ‘Hon, do whatever you want. Just believe in yourself.’ Like that's caring.”  
“Then what?”

Nate felt in pain, suddenly, and it wasn't just from the headache.

“It's what she would have wanted three years ago. I'm doing it for who she used to be. Who knows? Maybe if this works out, she'll be back. And I wouldn't want to have disappointed her then.”

“Right,” Crowley said quietly.

“Toxicology,” Nate said. It was something else to think about.


	4. Chapter 4

The exam came and went and was best not talked about. Nate invited Lily and Erica over for drinks that evening and, eventually, he called Kate, too. It was an insane sense of hope that drove him to it, that maybe he could keep friends instead of losing them. That maybe the people from his group presentation wouldn't ditch him as soon as the project was over. That maybe there was a spark of genuineness in the polite niceties. And even more unbelievable – that once he'd lost someone, he could get them back.

Nate had ordered a party pizza and placed the open carton on his living room table, along with two six-packs that he'd bought at the petrol station. He looked around the room. He'd cleaned up (or rather repositioned his mess) after his study session. The room looked orderly (almost nice with the new couch Crowley had kept changing into a bed), but it didn't look lived in. After a moment of hesitation, Nate grabbed the flourishing plant from his room and put it in the middle of the table next to the pizza carton.

Then he started anxiously pacing the room, going through the whole thing in his head. What were they going to do? Watch TV? Just drink? Talk? What if there was nothing to talk about? Sit awkwardly in silence for three minutes? What if Kate didn't get along with Erica and Lily? What if _Nate _didn't get along with Kate? He hadn't seen her in so long. For fuck's sake, what had he been thinking? This was a bad idea, a horrible idea, worse even than the demon summoning idea. Nate, making friends? Please. It sounded ridiculous, even in his head. _Not too late to call the whole thing off, _Nate thought and reached to his back pocket to grab his phone, when the doorbell rang. It was too late now. _Oh damn, oh damn, oh damn,_ Nate thought, making his way over to the door. He opened it and Lily and Erica were standing on his door step.

_Oh damn, _he thought.

“Hi,” he said.

He could have just not opened the door, really. Vanish through the bathroom window, buy a one-way ticket to Australia, raise the creepy Australian version of chickens on a farm and tell Erica and Lily they had the wrong house over WhatsApp. Better yet, throw the phone into a volcano and never talk to another human being ever again. Why did the best plans only ever occur to him afterwards?

“So, uhm,” he began, leading them into the hallway. “This is my underground cave - you know how it is when your family wants to kill you slowly through Vitamin D deficiency.”

They stepped into the living room.

“Uhm, Nate?” Erica said.

“What?”

“Who's that?”  
Nate turned. Crowley, who had been sleeping on the couch, now blinked up at them.

“Right,” Nate said quietly. “Knew I forgot something.” Then he stepped aside and waved vaguely at the girls. “This is Lily and that's Erica. She's from Atlanta. And this is – J. He's from Hell.”

Crowley shot up from the couch.  
“What?” he sputtered and grabbed Nate's arm to drag him away from the visitors. “How dare you?” Crowley hissed quietly. “I've lived on earth for over six thousand years. Before that, maybe I'd lived in Hell for a bit, but if you wanna go that far back you might as well say I'm from fucking _Heaven_.”

Nate looked at him, put out. “And have everyone think I'm crazy?”

Crowley slipped on a pair of sunglasses, and even though that seemed a bit odd to Nate, he decided not comment. He turned to Erica and Lily again, flashing them a smile.

“Sorry about that. J is – he's, uhm…living with me for a while. He's a student, too.”  
They looked at Crowley, who was very clearly not fresh into uni, then back at Nate.

“Uh, he's changed majors a lot.”  
They kept staring at him.

“His parents are loaded,” Nate tried.

“Ah,” Erica and Lily replied, nodding in understanding, and relaxed.

“So, uh, why don't you get settled on the couch? There's – pizza,” he said, pointing at the pizza. “And, uhm, beer.” He pointed at the beer.

“Or, if, if you don't wanna drink, I mean, if – if – you still want to drink – but like, not... I also have – water.”

He glanced to the kitchen, then laughed nervously.

“Not in a fancy bottle I could show off, unfortunately.”

Erica and Lily carefully sat on the couch, next to Crowley, who was already sitting on the far end of the sofa.

“No, the beer's fine,” Lily said quietly.

“So, how old are you?” Erica said to Crowley.

“A little over six thousand years,” Crowley said.

“Oh,” Erica said. “Cool.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“I'm nineteen,” Erica said then.

Crowley nodded slowly. Another moment of silence passed.

“Emotionally, though?” Erica said. “I'm like, three millennia your senior.”

For several slow, agonizing seconds, no one said anything.

“Scrabble?” Nate burst out.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lily said quickly.

“Sounds great,” Erica said.

Crowley rolled his eyes.

Nate went to look through one of the drawers that still had some of his aunt's things in them until he uncovered the game. They set up the board on the table. After three turns, the doorbell rang again.

“Oh, it's – it's probably my old – my – Kate?”  
“Your girlfriend?” Lily asked.  
“No, my – fr-”- he couldn't bring himself to say it-“ - end.”  
That seemed more fitting than anything else.

“Kate,” he said again.

He felt frozen in place.

“Well,” Erica said. “You gonna let her in?”  
“Yup,” Nate said, but didn't move.

“Uh,” Lily said, “you want _me _to do it?”  
“No!” Nate said quickly and jumped up. “On it.”  
He opened the door and there she was, looking him up and down with kind brown eyes. She held something in her hands, but Nate could only look at her face.

“Kate,” he said. “Long – long time -”

“- no see,” she finished and smiled at him. Nate suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to go into his bedroom, slam his face into the pillow and cry for a long time.

“There's – we're, like, scrabble – uh, scrabbling.”

“Playing Scrabble?” she asked, still smiling. It didn’t seem fake.  
“Yeah.”  
“I, too, love making verbs out of nouns, but only if they don't already have a meaning in English.”

“What?” Nate said. “Oh. Yeah. We're not – we're not scratching each other, that's not it.”  
“So, it's safe to come in?” She smirked and tilted her head.  
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah.” And didn't move.

“Nate?”  
“Oh, sorry,” Nate said and stepped aside. “Brain power working at, like, eight percent right now.”

“Eight percent?”  
“Maybe dropped to two when you rang the door.”  
“Not enough coffee?” she asked.

“Something like that,” he said, his throat tight. He allowed himself a shaky smile, but dropped it after a moment.

“Uh, what's that?” Nate said and nodded to the container in Kate's hands.

“Oh, right!” Kate said. “I brought you a casserole.”  
A casserole? Right. That's what humans do, don't they? They bring each other casseroles. Nate took the casserole and clutched it in his hands. They walked back into the living room and Nate did his best impression of human social behaviour.

“So, uh,” he started, because that was always a good way to start. “What have you been up to, lately?”  
“Oh, ha,” Kate said, “where do I begin? Gosh. Oh. Don't even make me think about it.”  
“That bad, huh?”  
“No, just got a lot going on. I have a meeting with a researcher in Chemical Engineering on Monday, who wants to discuss my essay, which is, ha, crazy. And there's a showing of my little video project on Wednesday, which, hey, what do you know? I did _that_. And then there's the first concert of my orchestra tomorrow that I play the violin in, not the one with the bass. Oh, but I also promised Barry I'd meet him over the weekend and my brother's restaurant opens on Monday, and you know what I _don't _do these days? Sleep. Eat. But, hey, hey -”  
“Breathe?” Nate interjected. “I know you're superhuman, Kate, but even you can't go without breathing.”  
“Funny,” Kate panted. “I try. But, what, uh, what about you? What have you been up to?”  
“Oh,” Nate said, feeling a bit sheepish. What could he say? _A whole lot of nothing? Drinking? Staying up late and painting graffiti on walls that don't belong to me?_

“I, uh,” he said, pointing at the table. “I have a plant. It's… see, it's going pretty well.”

“Oh, nice plant.”  
“I call her Miss Brown.”  
“Ah, like our fourth grade English-”  
“Don't know what you're talking about,” Nate said with clenched teeth. For a moment, there was silence.

“Scrabble?” Lily said. There was a sound of collective agreement.  
“Or,” Erica chimed in, “how about we get wasted.”

The sound of collective agreement was more enthusiastic this time. Nate ripped open the six pack and handed out beer bottles.

“Oh,” Kate said and turned up her nose. “That all you have? Beer?”  
“What?” Nate said. “Oh. You want something, what, more dignified? Fancier? Cause, sure, why not? I gotta have – uhm. A – bottle of – whiskey somewhere. Right, Crowley?”  
Crowley shot him an irritated look.

“Bottle of whiskey?”  
Crowley rolled his eyes and cracked his neck. “Ah. I'll see what I can do about it.”  
“Thanks.”

Crowley left for the kitchen. They heard a snap, and Crowley returned with a bottle and some glasses in his hands.

“So, you want a cocktail, or something?” Nate said, trying very hard to sound like he knew how to make cocktails. Not to mention that he was still lacking some ingredients. Could you make a cocktail from whiskey and beer? Maybe he could find a way to liquidize the red pepper that Crowley had magicked up for him. He could put in frozen tater tots instead of ice cubes.

Kate poured herself a glass of whiskey.

“No, no, I'm good,” she said and drank it pure.

“Wow,” Nate said.

“Shit,” Erica said.

Kate finished the glass in a few large gulps.

“That can't be good,” Nate said.

“Oh, I needed that,” Kate said and giggled.

“Great!” Nate said. “So this is gonna be fun.”  
  


After about an hour, the bottle was half empty and, like with many things in his life, Nate had no idea how it had happened. The alcohol felt good before it felt bad. It made his head dizzy and like it was fogged up. So foggy that it was hard to make out all the misshapen parts of his mind and the fog made them appear a little more beautiful. So Nate laughed, and he drank, and the fog in his head made the giddiness look like happiness and the strangers in his flat like friends. He talked to Erica and Lily about uni. Lily was into art, and she'd seen his graffiti around town. Erica knew a lot of the same video games that Nate liked. It was a bit strange, having someone to talk to that he actually had something in common with. _Polite niceties_, Nate thought, _sure look a lot like genuine interest in this fog._

He stumbled into the bathroom, only to find Crowley sitting on the floor, staring into the empty space in front of him.

“Hey, hey, hey – Mr. Crowley, sir, have you heard? Erica is a history minor.”  
Nate let himself fall down next to Crowley.

“And, listen, she had this history project and it would be reeeeally cool to have a, like, like, testimony about what it was like in the 14th century -”  
“The 14th century? Get out.”

Crowley cracked a smile at his hands before he let it fall away.  
“Please, Mr. Crowley. It would be so cool if Erica could quote you in her presentation.”

Crowley smirked slyly. “Oh, you want to cheat?”  
“Well, it technically it wouldn't be cheating, since. You know. You were actually there.”

Crowley frowned. “You guys are no fun.”  
“Please?”  
“Okay, fine, how's this.”

Crowley swiped his hand across the air as though to indicate a headline.

“It's the second of August, 1456. Cars aren't even a thing yet. This fucking sucks.” Crowley let his hand drop back into his lap.  
“That doesn't sound very authentic.”  
“Well, it's true,” Crowley retorted. “I've said it. Feel free to quote me all you like.”  
“Hey, Mr. Crowley?”  
“Huh?”  
Nate hesitated. “Are you alright?”  
“Obviously.” Crowley reached up to take of the sunglasses that had rested atop his head for most of the night.  
Nate nodded and buried his hands in his hoodie pockets.

“It's just,” Crowley said after a moment, “angels.”

“What about them?” Nate said and giggled. Angels.

“They're just, like, these, uhm, feathered birds. What'd you call them?”  
“Chickens?”  
“No, no, no, not chickens. Totally different wings. Like, the big white ones.”  
“Swans?”  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Swans. Swans are dicks, right? Get all up in your face when you accidentally get too close?”

A shadow fell over Crowley’s eyes for a moment as though he was remembering something.   
“Big personal bubble, swans,” Nate said.

“So, so, there's this swan, right?” Crowley continued. “Not like the other swans. Special swan. Only he, like, has this bubble, right? And that's what he's really pratic- parecu- particular about.”

“Just so we're clear, this is an – an -” Nate giggled, “- an angel we're talking about?”

“Yeah, yeah, but you can't hold it against him, really. He's not like that – snuffed-up bunch.”

“So, the, uh, the angels are dicks, except for one of them?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, that's about it. He's not like a swan, really. More like a duck. I like ducks.”  
“Good feet, ducks,” Nate agreed.  
“And he'll – he'll be like 'you mean so much to me, dear'. Like, unironically!”

“Unironically?” Nate asked, appropriately affronted.

“Yeah! Imagine that! So, so, you'd think, surely, I mean. Surely. It'd be okay to just. Hold his hand. For a bit. Reasonsable – Rasoneable – makes sense, right?” Crowley stuttered.

“Yeah, yeah.”  
“Only that he's still got that sssstupid, horrible swan bubble - thing.”

“Are you saying he – uhhhh – bit you?!”  
“Would've hurt less, probably. His – weapon of – of – what's it say in that video game we played?”  
“Weapon of choice?”  
“That. 's words. And it's, you know. Okay. Whatever. He can – like – like if he doesn't want? Fine. Only I think – he does. Maybe. Thought so, at least. Especially now after the whole apsocalypse – apocsalypse – Armageddon business. But noooo. 's not happening. 's never happening.”

“Oh.”  
“Yeah. Not like it matters, really. I'm a ssssnake, after all. Swan's worst enemy.”

Crowley picked at the skin of his fingers again until he drew blood.

“I think that's hawks, or something.”  
“Do I look like a hawk, to you?” Crowley bickered.

Nate shook his head absent-mindedly.

“No, no,” he said. “Cat. Remember?”  
“Bloody cat,” Crowley hissed.

“I think you just – just need to talk, man.”  
“Didn't you lisssten, boy?” Nate really liked the hissing thing Crowley did. Maybe it was the fog, but it was really calming to hear. “Words. Words are evil - nasty, really. Stab worse than his dumb flaming sword.”

“He's got a flaming sword?!”  
Crowley glared at him.  
“Right, right. Not freaking out about the flaming sword. This is some Romeo and Julia shit, isn't it?”  
“Well, I never did like the tragic ones. Point is – 's not a tragedy.”

“'s a comedy, then?”  
“Oh, sure, yeah. Cause I'm just a joke.” Crowley knocked his head back against the bathroom wall.

“No, no, cause there's a happy ending,” Nate insisted.

“Ha. Right. In another six thousand years, maybe.”

“An angel and a demon, huh? Sounds pretty impossible.”

Crowley nodded. “Oh, I know. Don't know what I was thinking, really. 's impossible.”  
“No, no, no, that's not what I meant. Just that it's pretty cool. Pretty brave.”  
“He's pretty, too, that's true.”

“Right,” Nate said softly.

His phone beeped. He had a message from Rogers.

“Whas that?” Crowley slurred.

“It's – my friend, Rogers. Him and the others are gonna hang in that warehouse tomorrow.”

“You gonna go to that?”  
Nate didn't even think about it. “No”, he said. “I think I'm good.” He got up. “I gotta check on the others. You gonna be okay here?”  
“Obviously,” Crowley replied, though he was quieter than he had been a few moments ago.  
“Okay.” Nate started walking away, but stopped at the door.

“Hey,” he said and looked at the demon on his bathroom floor, staring miserably into a glass of whiskey. “The wine cellar of Shelby's dad. Still there?”  
Angels and demons. Surely, he was still lying there, drunk, thinking it all up.

“Nope,” Crowley said and took a swig of whiskey. Nate took it as his cue to leave.

Nate kept drinking until everything, even the few nice things left in his life and every last thing he felt optimistic about, started looking ugly. The dizziness in his head turned into pounding. It seemed to want to wake him up. To start seeing things for what they really were. Nate had just grabbed Kate's casserole dish and gone to carry it into the living room, when he stumbled and the dish slipped out of his fingers, crashing into countless pieces on the floor.

He looked at the mess of shards, noodles, potatoes and mushrooms. He'd lost his grip. His breaths came more rapidly then and when he looked up, Kate's expression was horrified.

“You couldn't have been more careful with that?” she snarled. “Do you even know how much effort I put into that?” She shook her head. “But you don't, do you? You've never put effort into anything in your life.” Her eyes suddenly didn't look so kind any more.  
“I tripped, okay?” Nate said and closed his eyes. “I didn't do it on purpose.”

“You _hurt _me, though. You know that, right?”

“I'm sorry, Kate,” Nate ground out.

“So you _can _apologize!” Kate yelled. “Say you're sorry about my _casserole dish_. Really?”

“I thought that was what you wanted,” Nate said.  
“We both know I don't care about some stupid casserole dish.” Her words were slurred. Everything about her was slurred. The alcohol was strong. Crowley had thought up some good shit.

“Right.”

“What I care about is your ability to break things.”

Nate crossed his arms. His gaze hardened.

“Hey, you called me. You wanted to come. I didn't make you.”  
“I know. I'm sorry. I guess I just – thought I was fine. But I'm not. You hurt me.”

“Uhm,” Lily said.

“I think we better leave,” Erica said.

They grabbed their handbags and turned to go.

“No, wait -” Nate started, but he didn't really know how to finish. He watched them walk away. He saw the far away possibility of friendship slip further away. Because that was what he did best – losing. Not in life, though there was that, too. People. And she was standing right in front of him - the one he'd lost - but not quite close enough to touch if he reached out his hand.

“So you think this is all my fault?” Nate asked, exasperated.

“You're the one who didn't call!” she yelled.

“Yeah. Well. It hasn't exactly been an episode of _My Little Pony _for me.”

Kate let out a bitter laugh.

“And I could have helped you! I could have been there for you! If only you'd have trusted me a little more.”  
“How could I trust you? How could I trust anyone? Everyone leaves. Everyone lies. I've looked for three years and I still haven't found anything real in this fake ass world.”

“It's all on me, then, is that it?” she screamed, words still stumbling about. “You’re the one who gave up!”  
Nate couldn’t take it anymore. “And you're the one who _left me, _when I needed you most!”  
“It was bad timing.”  
“Bad timing?! My dad left. My mum got sick. Then you left, too!” He was screaming right back at her. “I mean, Jesus, I was all alone out there. I was sixteen. I didn't know how to make a home out of a house or a – a real, functioning human being out of whatever mess was left of me. I still don't. My mum never taught me how to make a casserole dish or how to be just polite enough not to offend any adults or how to stay calm in an emergency or even just to keep my head above water.”  
“You think I should have fixed that for you? Or could have?”  
“Ha. No. Of course not. But maybe I wouldn't have been so -” He took a deep breath and crossed his arms in front of his chest. It was always so cold. “So alone,” he finished. “While I was dealing with it.”

Kate’s face crumpled. “I've been lonely, too.”

Nate settled in front of the sofa where none of the shards had reached. Kate sat next to him, close but not touching.

“We're pretty messed up, aren't we?” Kate asked, and she leaned her head against Nate's shoulder. He tensed up but kept his shoulder still.

“Guess so,” Nate replied quietly. “But it's nothing that can't be fixed.”

“Promise me you'll try?”  
“You know -” Nate said. Swallowed. Tried again. “For the longest time I – you're right – I gave up. I thought I would never find that stupid thing that we're all looking out for. A happy life. Not just brief moments of almost happiness. The real deal. You think, well, life's not gonna give it to me, so I might as well – stop trying. But life doesn't owe you anything. If you want something, you have to take it. And I haven't felt very brave, lately.”

Nate hugged his knees and pulled them close to his chest.

“It's just -” he said. “Is that even what I'm looking for? I'm not so sure. I feel like I'm wasting my life, doing stuff that feels like a waste of time. But then when I'm doing other stuff – being productive, or whatever... the kind of stuff I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life doing... I still feel – empty. Still feel like I'm wasting it. Even when I'm happy, or as close to happy as I can get, it's like someone's... constantly looking over my shoulder in disapproval. Going, _what for_? And I don't know how to get away from that.”  
“Hey,” Kate said softly and touched Nate's fingers to unclench them from where they'd been digging into his arm. Nate looked at his hand in wonder and only now realized the pain in his arm.

“You just have to be patient,” Kate continued. “Maybe the happiness feels fake right now, but you have to keep doing these things that make you happy until one day you can trust yourself to keep it. And then you'll know that you deserve it. And that all you ever did was your best. Always.”  
“Only,” Nate said quietly and more to himself, “my best is far below average, most of the time.”

“Look at me,” Kate said, and Nate looked up and into her kind eyes. “That doesn't matter. It's your best. You can't think about anything else. Because you're so strong for getting up every morning and facing the world yet another day.”

“Yet another day. Right. It's just that... there's so many of them.” The drunkenness was coming back. “Days. Feels like too many, sometimes.”

Kate smiled. “And still not enough. Because you might feel like you have all the time in the world, but you don't. All you have is right now. And that's where you need to be. Right now. Not looking for a purpose. Not worrying about the future. Just doing your best, today.”

“I just want to stop feeling so empty inside.”  
“You will,” she insisted.

“What about you? No offense, but – you don't seem to be doing so good.”  
“Shit,” Kate said, “yeah. I cried at a yogurt commercial yesterday.”  
“One from your dad's marketing company?  
“Yeah. He made up the slogan himself. 'Eat Roffade with a smile on your face'.”

“Why did that make you cry?”  
She giggled beside him. “Oh. I don't know, really. It was just one of these things. Like, I can't even pretend any more to be as happy as the family in the commercial, no matter how many yogurts I eat. And I don't think it's because I've gotten bad at the pretending thing. It just keeps getting harder.”

“Hey...” Nate said. “You shouldn't have to pretend.”  
“Well, we all do, don't we?”  
Nate gave her an unhappy smile.

“I mean,” she said, “my dad always did. He'd pretend to sell happiness at work, then come home and not talk to any of us.”

“You're not like him, though.”

She sighed. “Oh... I don't know. I'm a pretty great pretender. Pretended I didn't miss you for three years.”  
“You're here now,” Nate said with a fragile smile. He put an arm around her shoulder in a half hug.

“I guess I've been a bit of a bitch,” Nate said.  
“And I was kind of a dick,” Kate said.

“You wanna eat ice cream and watch _Mary Poppins_?” Nate asked, and Kate nodded.

He found Crowley still in the bathroom. He was able to convince him to miracle them some ice cream, and the three of them settled on the couch. Strangely, Nate didn't feel empty then. Instead, he felt filled with love, a vague feeling of safety, and cookie dough ice cream.


	5. Chapter 5

When Nate left uni the next morning, he heard some shouting from the back of the building. He'd had followed up on a lot of bad ideas lately, so he figured, why not keep the streak going? He went to check out the situation. He approached quietly. There were two guys and a girl. The tall, blonde one of the two had the girl pressed up against the wall of the building. Nate recognized the guy as one of Max' friends Kevin. The girl with the green hair was – Lily.

“You broke my bro's heart, you know?” Nate heard Kevin say.  
“What, by saying no? I know learning new words is hard, but I doubt that a two-letter word was too much for even his pea brain.”

“I don't really understand why,” Kevin pressed out between clenched teeth, “but Cody somehow caught feelings for you, so I'm gonna make sure he gets what he wants. You understand?”

“I understand that no one has told him ‘no’ in his life. I think it's time for a vocabulary lesson.”

Nate logically knew Lily could outsmart these guys ten ways to Tuesday, but strength-wise? It was leaning less in her favour.

“Fine, I have a word for you: pain. P, A, I, N. You're gonna become intimately familiar with it if you refuse Cody again,” Kevin said.

Nate felt a flush of anger rise up in him.

“What are you gonna do?” Lily asked, a cocky smile on her face. “Beat me up with a dictionary?”  
“It is a heavy book,” Kevin's companion remarked.

“I'm not gonna need a dictionary to make you wish you were never born,” Kevin said.

“Wow,” Lily drawled. “You're getting good at this threatening thing. Aw, have you guys been practising without me?”  
She raised an eyebrow at him, but Nate could see her hands shaking at her sides. Nate was torn between stepping in and getting help.

“Maybe I'll practise with your brother, next,” Kevin said.

“Don't drag my brother into this,” Lily said.

“What, you scared?” Kevin said and grinned. Lily spit in his face.  
“You little bitch,” Kevin called and pressed her harder into the wall, nearly choking her. Nate acted without thinking. He ran from his hiding spot and slammed into Kevin's body with full force, dragging him away from Lily. They landed on the ground and Kevin hauled Nate over. Nate struggled against Kevin's pressing hands, but without the force of a run, Nate's strength wasn't much to show for. Nate punched Kevin's side and Kevin retaliated by punching his face. Nate could feel blood trickling from his nose. He kept pushing, but Kevin had secured his hands. Nate was helpless – the only thing keeping him going was the rage still coursing through him. This was where life led him a little too often – crushed, in pain, helpless.

Then, Lily punched Kevin's face. His grip loosened at the irritation but not enough for Nate to break free.

“Ow,” Lily said.

“Some help here?” Kevin snarled.

“Uhm,” his friend said uncertainly, “I'm good.”  
“What is that supposed to mean?”

The friend's name was Alexander, Nate remembered. They’d had some math together in school.  
“I mean, it's all such a hassle, and… I would prefer not to.”

He was a literature major.

Lily punched Kevin a second time. This time, Kevin let go of Nate's hands and got up.

“Come on,” Kevin said. “These guys are crazy. Let's go.”

They vanished around the corner.

“Oh my god,” Lily said and covered her face with her hand. “Oh my god. I just punched Kevin Wheeler.”  
“Twice,” Nate said from the ground.

“Twice!” Lily squealed and helped Nate up. “Oh god, are you okay?”  
Nate's ears were ringing, and there was a sharp pain in his nose.

“You want to go to the nurse?” Lily asked.  
“No, no. I don't want anyone to know what happened.”  
“You kind of saved me there,” Lily said with a laugh.  
“No, I think it was you who saved me.”  
“Well. Thanks, anyway.”

Nate pinched his nose and looked in the direction of where the two guys had gone off. “Gosh, that guy is a dick.”

“You got that right.”  
“Does this happen often?”  
Lily pulled at her bottom lip. “Sometimes.”  
“Damn. Something like this happen again, you come find me, okay?”  
“What, so he can turn you into toast?”  
“You can just save me again,” Nate said and smirked.

“In your dreams,” Lily smirked back. Nate lightly bumped her shoulder. She lightly bumped back.

“You're tougher than you look, aren't you?” she said.

“So are you,” Nate said.

“Huh,” Lily said. “Wanna get lunch tomorrow with me and Erica?”  
“Sure.”  
Nate walked home that day with a bleeding nose and a smile on his face.  
  


When Nate got home, he went straight to the kitchen and immediately started doing the dishes, because that was a thing he did now, apparently.

“I know you're new to this,” Crowley said slowly leaning in the door, “but you're only supposed to clean it once.”  
“I'm not -” Nate's gaze dropped to the plate he'd been rubbing for quite some time now.

“Hey,” Crowley said, alerted. “Look at me.”  
Nate turned to him. “You've been crying,” Crowley marvelled.  
“I haven't-” Nate started.  
Crowley touched his cheek and then looked at his wet fingers in bewilderment. “And is that a broken nose?”  
“I -” Nate braced his hands on the counter and took a few slow breaths. “I don't know if it's broken,” he said.

“How dare you?” Crowley snarled and stepped closer. “This behaviour is unacceptable.”

“I didn't – didn't mean to -”  
“You put yourself back together _immediately_, and if you break this easily again, there will be consequences.”

It took Nate a second to realize Crowley wasn’t talking to _him_.   
“Are you – Are you talking to my nose? I mean, the plant thing was weird, but -”  
The pain in Nate's nose suddenly subsided.

“Oh.”  
Nate ran a finger across his nose.

“And here I was thinking you couldn't solve all problems with threats of violence. Maybe I should go around yelling more.”  
Crowley laughed.   
“That wouldn't work. You're as intimidating as a baby chicken.”  
“Excuse me?!” Nate exclaimed. He’d like to think that he was maybe up to the intimidation of a lame duck.

“Which is why I'm wondering about the broken nose and all.”  
“Don't like bullies, I guess,” Nate muttered.

“I thought you were friends with a bunch of them.”  
“Yeah, turns out I'm not such a big fan when it's someone else being bullied. And I certainly hope I wasn't reminding him of a baby chicken when I slammed him into the ground.”

“You do that often?” Crowley asked softly. “Get into fights?”  
“I did before uni. I was just so angry because the world was so...”  
“Hateful? Unfair?”  
Nate looked at the residual blood on his fingers.

“Oh, what do you know about an unfair world? You can solve any problem you have with just the snap of your fingers. You have no idea what real trouble is like.”  
“Ha,” Crowley said drily. “I don't know. I think getting kicked out of the only home I ever knew, the only place where I've ever felt save, has made me a bit... weary of people.”

Nate looked up and suddenly Crowley was wearing sunglasses again.

“Ah. Right. I'm – I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I just – It's all so – so – scary. Everyone's out to get you. Life is just – it's just war, isn't it? I guess you know that.”

“So, that's it? You think everyone is your enemy?” Crowley asked.  
“I mean – no – but – I can't really... tell who is and who isn't. 's better to be prepared. Because I fight, and I fight, and I fight.”  
Crowley rolled his eyes and pointed to his nose. “And how's that working out for you? Approaching everything with violence?”  
“Guess I thought it could make me stop feeling angry. But nothing really does.”  
Crowley just looked at him for a long moment.

“I've not always been like that, you know?” Nate said. “After that thing with my mom, I kind of gave up on being gentle. And I don't know how to touch people any more or how to let them touch me.”  
“So your friends there? You just let them walk over you?”  
Nate shrugged. “You win some, you lose some, I guess. Or, more like: you win some, but lose most.”

Crowley was silent for a long time. Nate thought of his mother's hands, gently guiding him into taking the right steps. He looked at his own hands. His knuckles were split.

“I've met War, you know,” Crowley said conversationally. He gently traced the wounds on the back of Nate’s hand, and they disappeared where Crowley touched his skin. “She's really not nice to talk to. Especially not when she had that blessed flaming sword.”

_The angel's flaming sword? _Nate didn't ask.

“I saw an eleven-year-old defeat her,” Crowley continued. “You can, too, you know. Beat War. But not through more fighting.”  
“Then how do you do it?” Nate asked.  
“I haven't really quite figured it out myself. But I think – you just have to trust people.”

“'s not as easy as it sounds.”

Nate cried, then, without hiding his face. Without running away.

“I think it's time you held up your end of the bargain,” he said.

“Really? You're ready for that?”  
Nate sniffled. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready for this, but now was the only time in years he’d felt ready to face the music.   
“Yeah. I think we should visit my mum.”  
  


Nate opened the door with the key he still had. He stepped through the hallway. It looked the same as the last time he'd been here. He knocked and opened the living room door slowly. The curtains were drawn, and it was dark. There were tissues on the ground and empty mugs on the table. All he could see was a heap of blankets and some messy hair.

“Mum?” he said.

The head attached to the messy hair appeared from under the blankets.

“Oh,” his mum said with the rough voice of someone who hadn't used it in a while. She looked at some point next to his head. “Is it Friday already?”

He couldn't look away from her pale face, the deep rings under her eyes. He still hadn't gotten used to how thin she looked. She was wearing a white gown with a stain on it. Nate knew, then, that adulting was not like riding a bike. You could unlearn it.

“Yeah, but I wasn't here last week, remember? Because of... because...”  
“Right. Right. I know,” she slurred. Her eyes unfocused and suddenly she seemed very far away. Why did he have to bring that up? She was silent for a moment, then she seemed to come back to herself.

“How was uni this week, honey? Did you have a test?”   
At least she could remember the lingo.   
“It was… I – I got into a fight,” Nate admitted.

“Oh. But you've sorted that out now, haven't you? My little boy.”

Nate stepped closer and took her hands.   
“Mum...” he said. “I think you need help.”  
“Oh, I'm fine, honey. Don't you worry about me.”  
Nate sniffled a little bit. “But I _want _to worry about you. Because things are not fine. When did you last wash your hair? Eat something?”

“I was just doing a little work on my laptop,” she insisted with a smile. “I must have lost track of time.”

“When are you going to clean the living room, mum? When are you going to go to the grocery store? When are you going to call your friends?”  
“Soon, honey. Very soon.”   
She looked past him again towards the entryway.   
“I get it, mum, really. I get how easy it is to – to lose yourself. But you have to at least see, right? It's not okay.”  
She sighed. “It's just a little dust, dear. It's gonna be alright.”

He gripped her hand tighter.

“I went to an underpass last week to do graffiti,” he said, an urgent tone in his voice, though he didn't know what he was urging her to.

“I'm sure you painted something nice,” she said and smiled weakly.

“Nothing I do can make you actually see me, right?” Nate said.  
“Of course I see you,” she laughed. “You’re right here.”  
Nate felt the tears gathering in his eyes.

“But you're not, are you? You're somewhere in your head, aren't you? With him.”

She rubbed a hand across her face. “I guess... it's hard not to think about it. But, don't worry, okay? I love you.”  
“You might love me, but you don't care,” Nate rasped.

“That's not true,” she said quietly, but she still wouldn't look him in the eye. “Your dad's going to come home eventually. You don't have to worry about a thing.”  
“Mom. He left three years ago. How can you still believe he’ll come home? You know what? You go live in your – your dream house. I hope you know it's built on lies.”  
He turned around and slammed the living room door closed behind him. Crowley had stayed behind to let Nate talk to her first. Now he stood across the hallway, his eyes again obscured by the sunglasses, but his lips were thin.

“You okay?” he said.

“No,” Nate said, then. “Never.”   
He shook his head and sank down the door.   
“I just want her back,” he sobbed into the sleeve of his hoodie.

“She's right there.”  
“No,” Nate muttered. “I mean, I know it's not fair. But I just want everything to go back to the way it was before my dad ruined everything.”

“It's still her,” Crowley insisted, “even if it might not feel like it. Is that why you told your friends she was dead? Is she to you?”  
Nate looked up from his forearm. The heat of shame ran through him.   
“It's not about who she is. It's about what she does. And she's... she's given up. It was bad after he left. It got worse when I left for uni. I can't – I can't talk to her. I barely know her anymore.”

“Just because your dad left? Or because of a disease?”  
“No, no. Just because of him. She's depressed.”  
“What?” Crowley asked. “I thought she had cancer or something.”   
“No,” Nate replied, sinking back into his cocoon. “She's sick, yeah, but it’s depression. You know?”  
“Oh,” Crowley said and his voice changed. It sounded softer now. “Nate – I can't help you with that. I'm sorry.”  
“What – what the hell is that supposed to mean?! You – you said you would help me! So help me!”  
“Yeah, but you never told me she was depressed. With mental diseases, it's different.” Crowley looked away. “It's difficult.”

“So make the effort! I don't care. You _lied _to me.”

Crowley sighed. “They're not caused by some virus or – or anomaly. They're caused by life. In this case, at least. I can't just snap my fingers and make it go away. And I shouldn't, either. Stuff like this needs time. A healing process needs to be lived. I could make her forget, or change her personality, but she'd just be lying to herself. Is that what you want?”  
Nate felt like a child. “You said you could heal her!”  
“I didn't _know_. We can still help her, just not with miracles.”  
“Bullshit.” Nate wanted to yell, but it barely came out above a whisper. “If she hasn't changed all this time, then nothing's gonna – there's no way that I'll ever -”

He shook his head. He couldn't think any more. He just felt… betrayed. And empty. He stood up and rushed past Crowley.

“Where are you going?” Crowley called.

“I'm gonna go to the warehouse. The others are going to be there soon.”  
“Don't do this, Nate,” Crowley said. “Don't make my mistakes.”

“You said it yourself when you first met me – you're not my friend. Maybe I'll have better luck with the devil.”  
He slammed the front door.


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey, my man,” Rogers greeted him in the warehouse. He was sitting on some of the wood pallets that were stacked near the entrance. Nate purposefully stepped on the crunchy leaves that must have blown in through the broken windows. Rogers stood up and tried to sling an arm around Nate's shoulder, but Nate flinched away.

“Don't touch me,” he said quietly, but firmly.

“What's got your panties in a twist?” Rogers asked, but stepped away. “You're not still angry about last week, are you?”

“Give me that,” Nate said and grabbed one of the beer bottles standing next to Rogers on the stack of wood pallets. He could feel Roger's irritated gaze on him, but he ignored it and began to drink from the beer bottle. It left an unpleasant taste on his tongue, but he was willing to endure it so long as he could just become a little bit number to the pain.

“Jesus,” Rogers said. “What happened to you?”  
“Don't wanna talk about it,” Nate retorted.

“That... thing... last week. Got you really shaken up, huh? Cause you know that was all some hallucination, or, the guys from the next town over getting revenge for the spring party. We were pretty drunk, after all.”  
“Yeah,” Nate muttered. “Sure.”

Now that Crowley wasn't right here anymore, he suddenly felt like Rogers might be right. Maybe he'd build himself a dream house, just like his Mum. Maybe no one had ever made him a promise – and maybe there was nothing broken now. Yeah. That sounded much more realistic than such an implausible thing as hope.

Ted arrived shortly after, and she planted herself next to Rogers with an eyeroll.

“Stupid ass car,” she said. “I'm all out of gas. Text Max that he should bring some on his way so I can get home.”

“Why don't you do it yourself?” Rogers asked.

“You wanna ride with me, you text,” Ted said and glared at Rogers with such an intensity that he got his phone out and started tapping on it immediately.

A swift wind came in through the window, and Nate drew up the hood of his sweater. He couldn't stop seeing the detached look on his Mum's face. He took another sip of the beer. He couldn't stop hearing her soft voice. He took a gulp from the bottle.

“So that summoning business last week was pretty freaky, what?” Rogers said.

“We agreed to never talk about it again,” Ted declared and waved vaguely in Rogers direction. “If you ever bring it up again, I'm gonna cut off your balls.”

“Right,” Rogers chuckled. “Why don't we talk about Nate's scar?”  
“Why don't you shut the hell up?” Nate snapped.

He couldn't get her empty smile out of his head. She would never laugh with friends again. She would never dance with the vacuum cleaner in the living room. She would tell him everything was gonna be alright, and because of that, nothing would ever be alright again.

“You're so sensitive today,” Rogers scoffed.

Nate would never have real friends again. He would never be fully comfortable in someone else's presence. He would never know how to say the right thing.

“You think we're all going to hell?” Nate said.

He drank some more beer.

“Why do you gotta be such a downer, dude?” Rogers said, seeming irritated.

“We're all gonna be judged by the same measures even though we're all different people? Trying to please some sort of all-knowing creature that's never been even there for us?”  
That’s why he fucking hated religion class - none of it had ever made sense because God had never lived their individual lives or stopped the bullshit from coming. In fact, it was God’s fault that the bullshit was there in the first place.

“Wow,” Ted said, not sounding very wowed at all. “You're so deep.”

“Why all the secrecy?” Nate asked, getting worked up. “Why not be up front about it? Why don't you just tell me what I'm in for?”

“I thought you were agnostic,” Rogers said.  
There would always be people like Kevin bullying people like Lily. And people like Nate would never be able to do something about it. Maybe there were no demons who were good, no version of Nate that was stable.

“Not like it matters, if we all go to hell,” Nate continued. “Not like it can get any worse than this.”  
He gestured vaguely around the warehouse, and a few rats scuttled in the corner.

“You're a real killjoy, Nate,” Rogers restated. “I suggest you shut your face for half an hour.”

“Less talking,” Ted said, “more drinking.”  
She pushed the bottle back to Nate’s lips.

So Nate talked less, drank more, and shut away any desire to be honest and vulnerable deep inside of himself.

Max and Shelby arrived some time later. Max was carrying a jerrycan. He held it up.

“Check this out,” he said. “Exactly the kind of stuff your girl is thirsty for. Yep. I know how to please the ladies.”  
“Ew, gross,” Ted grunted. “Stop talking about my car this way.”

“You know what's gross?”

Max unscrewed the cap and shoved the container in Ted's face.

“The smell of this thing,” he said.

Ted recoiled and Max broke into a grin. Ted decided that the best course of action was to flee, and Max chased after her. Nate hid his face in his hood and could only think of Kevin pushing Lily against the wall. Then he heard a crash and looked up. Max was on the ground, his foot stuck in one of the pallets. The container laid next to him. His hand was propped up in a puddle of petrol.

“Shit!” Max yelled.

“You moron,” Ted sighed. “Now how am I gonna get home?”  
“You can walk,” Max suggested. “Like us peasants, who don't own cars.”

“More like peasants who want to get drunk,” Ted retorted.

“See, that's the upside,” Rogers said and handed Ted a beer. “You can lose ninety percent of your brain power with the rest of us.”

Nate snorted. Max looked at him then like he hadn't even noticed him before.

“If it isn't our scared little chicken,” Max said and tilted his head. “You didn't come last time. Here I was thinking we'd managed to scare you off.”

Nate turned away, trying not to let it get to him.

“You gonna cry for mummy?” Max said.  
“Y'know what's bad?” Nate said. “Lyin'. Lyin's pretty bad. You know what's worse, though? Making fun of someone's Mum when you think she's dead.”

“I-”

“Why are you such an asshole, Max?” Nate asked conversationally.

“Excuse me?” Max said.

“You're scared of something, aren't you?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Maz demanded, getting to his feet and stepping closer to Nate.  
“Well, guess we're all scared of it. Being honest.”

“I'm not scared of anything,” Max countered.  
“See? See! That's what I'm talking about. That's a load of crap right there.” Nate pointed at Max as if that proved his point. Nate giggled in blissful, drunken unawareness of himself.  
“You're just as bad as - as Kevin, whose like, damn, he majorly sucks. And he's like, your friend. But then, it's like, you're my friend, and what does that say about me? Probably that I majorly suck, too.”  
“What do you have against Kevin?”  
Max crossed his arms in front of his chest. Nate giggled again.

“Oh, only that he threatened my – my fr- oh. I think. Maybe you're not my friend. Maybe I don't have any friends.”  
“Not after what you're pulling here you don't,” Max hissed. He was shaking slightly when he pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of his jacket. His hands were still shaking when he lit the cigarette. He dropped both into the petrol puddle in front of his feet. The puddle went up in flames. Max hastily stumbled away.

“You fucking idiot!” Shelby yelled.

“Can we fix this?” Rogers asked. “Put it out again?”  
But the fire was moving quickly to the wood pallets and across the dry leaves on the floor.

“Let's just get the fuck out of here!” Max yelled.

They all ran towards the exit, across some of the wood pallets. Nate could feel the panic coursing through him, the brightness of the fire burning his eyes even from his peripheral vision. Shit. Fuck. If anyone found out about their involvement in the fire, they'd be screwed. He wanted to go into police work. He was jeopardizing his dream by even having broken into this place. All he could think about was getting far, far away from this whole mess, when his foot got stuck in one of the pallets. And then he fell. The world tilted sideways and he caught himself with his elbows. His phone slipped out of his pocket and crashed.

“Guys,” he yelled. “Help me!”  
But they just kept on running. Rogers looked back to him for a brief moment, but then he kept going. Nate was alone. He tried removing his foot from the pallet, but it was stuck. In a way, he knew he deserved this. So he kept lying on the ground. His breathing sped up. He needed to get out of here. But he had no way of getting out of here. It felt like the flames were inching closer, and soon the police would come and find him here. He couldn't let that happen.

He let his gaze glide over the inside of the warehouse. It got stuck on the reflection of the moon near the entrance. For a second there, it looked so beautiful. Then Nate sat up. From there, it was just a puddle of mud.

“For a second there,” Nate muttered to himself, “I thought there was such a thing as the future.”  
Gosh, he'd been so foolish. This was on him.

Sometimes, Nate spent so long away from other people that he forgot that he was human. He lost shape, then. His lines became blurry. It was like when nobody could see him, he didn't need to be anybody at all and so he just – wasn't. And it was easy to lose sight of himself when he became shapeless like that. He became mingled with his surroundings, then, and hard to be spotted – harder to be found.

This was how Nate knew how to lose people. To run from them. To become shapeless.

The thought ran through his mind then – the thought of going back. Could he really find his shape again? Could he really one day look into the mirror and see himself? Maybe he'd been forgotten. Maybe what he'd done was unforgivable. And if there was one thing left that Nate could still see in himself, it was that he was a coward. But here's the thing about being shapeless: there's nothing defining you or holding you back. Maybe he was a coward yesterday. But maybe he would be brave today.

Nate searched the ground until he found a large rock right next to the pallet. He picked it up and started slamming into the wood next to where is foot was stuck. The pallets seemed really old and like they would fall apart easily. Nate cried out in frustration, but he used all his force to slam the rock down over and over. He knew he could get out of here if he just tried hard enough. The wood cracked and he could bend the strip just enough to free his foot.

Then he started hearing sirens and saw blue lights through the window. It was too late. He'd get caught. Suddenly, the fire seemed to be all around him and he couldn't see the exit any more.

Nate startled when there was a hand on his shoulder and whirled around. There was Crowley, red hair and sunglasses and all.

“Oh my holy fucking shit,” Nate said and jumped backwards.

“Holy?” Crowley asked, his voice thick with disgust.

“I said what I said,” Nate said. “You're pretty persistent for a hallucination.”

“How's your friendship with the devil coming along?” Crowley asked.

“Badly,” Nate said. “You could say it went up in flames.”

“What happened? Why are you still here?”  
“I- I fell,” Nate said and looked away.

Crowley tugged at his arm.

“Happens to the best of us,” he said and smiled. “Let's blow this popsicle stand.”  
“What about the police? What about the fire?”  
“Don't worry,” Crowley replied with a dazzling smile, “I'll take care of it.”

He led Nate through the flames and out of the building, past a fire truck.

“What did you do?” Nate asked, once they were a safe distance away.

“Oh, the building suddenly remembered that it has a sprinkler system. And the firemen could miraculously not find any trace of human beings spending time there recently.”

“Wow,” Nate said. It hadn't been Crowley's fault, really, that he hadn't been able to heal his mother. “Thank you.”

Crowley looked at him for a long moment.

“You're friends ditch you again, huh?”  
“Yeah. Well. Not like I expected anything else, really. We sort of just hang out in a no-strings kind of way. No honour amongst scoundrels.” Nate smiled to himself. “But anyway... I'm sorry. For earlier.”  
“Bridge under water. No wait. That's not how it goes, is it?”  
He looked like he was really thinking hard about something so trivial, and Nate kept smiling.  
“Well, unless you're trying to say I fucked up so bad it's like I dunked a bridge under water.”  
“I think it's more like, the opposite, what you did.”  
They started on their way home.

“They'll make up a new saying just for you. Something like '_That's all fire in the fireplace now.'” _

Crowley tilted his head back and laughed to the sky.

“No one would say that,” Nate said.  
“You know, there's some witches I could introduce you to...”

_Alright _suddenly seemed like a concept Nate could get familiar with again.

They fell silent in the living room, sitting next to each other on the couch.

“We should talk, shouldn't we?” Nate asked.

“They say it helps,” Crowley said. “I guess... I guess I should stop being a hypocritical bastard, right? We've both been running from the truth. I suppose I'm gonna start. Because... I haven't been completely honest with you. Remember how I told you I wanted to stay with you for a few days because I was bored?”  
“Of course.”  
“That wasn't the entire truth, exactly. The real reason is... I was scared. Am. Scared.”

Nate shrugged. “Yeah, I figured as much.”

Crowley pulled a face at him. “Shut it. Remember that angel I was telling you about?”  
“Romance of the century, right.”  
“Century?! 's the romance of the – the whichever is bigger than millennium.”

“Six thousand years, got it,” Nate nodded.  
“No, no, no. It's not like that. It's not – a romance.”

Crowley crossed his arms and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

“You know, this summoning business,” he said. “It's quite rude really. You just get snatched from wherever you are at the moment. I could've been in my car. Could've been in the bathtub. A business meeting. Or – uhm, talking to, uhm, someone important.”

“Oh my god-gosh, you were talking to your angel when we summoned you?”  
“He's not _my _angel,” Crowley said and averted his eyes. “It was really serious, too. He, uhm, said he needed to talk.”  
“Oh shit,” Nate mumbled, turning his gaze down to his hands.  
“Right in the middle of 'I'm afraid that I -', you summoned me.”  
Nate heard Crowley sigh.  
“What, just like that? You never even called to tell him where you were, did you?”  
The silence that met Nate answered his question.  
“He's been wondering about it all this time. I can't believe you.”  
“Yeah,” Crowley said and snuffed. “Not my best moment, I'll admit. But I just – I just know what he's gonna say. And he'll be so awfully, disgustingly nice about it.”

“Oh,” Nate said.

“I mean,” Crowley said and swallowed. He turned his head away. “I... wasn't good enough for Heaven. Obviously.”  
Nate looked up and watched as Crowley's jaw clenched.  
“Wasn't good enough for Hell, either,” Crowley continued. “But I was too much for Aziraphale.”

“Aziraphale? That's him?”  
Crowley nodded. “I don't... I don't really have a place in his book shop any more. We've been hanging out together a lot, after the apocalypse. But I think... it might have just been me bothering him. To him, our whole friendship was more of a... business arrangement.”

He sighed deeply and rubbed his nose. “He'll reject me. He'll say, _you're too much for me, Crowley._ Too much of a demon. Too demanding. In the book shop too often. _You go too fast for me_. And then, if he's not too much of a coward, he'll tell me the real reason. _You're too in love with me_. And well, there's not coming back from that.”

“Hey,” Nate said softly. “You've been friends with this guy for over six thousand years. You really think he's gonna tap out on you that easily?”  
“Well, he has threatened it before,” Crowley replied, once again anxiously rubbing his snake tattoo.  
Nate laughed. “You have no idea what he's gonna say. You've gotta get back there and find out.”  
“I know. I'm just so afraid of what it's gonna be.”  
Crowley seemed vulnerable enough to break with a glance, but Nate took his chances.

“You gotta take a chance sometimes. And I don't know your angel, but I'm pretty sure it's not what you think. Heaven and Hell can suck it. I think you're awesome. And I've known you just about a week - nowhere near six thousand years.”  
Crowley’s lips twisted to one side. “Yeah, well, maybe you wouldn't say that if you had.”

Nate watched Crowley carefully, desperately searching for the right thing to say. “You're pretty cool for a demon, you know?”  
“You're pretty cool for a twelve-year-old,” Crowley replied.

Nate smiled and shook his head. “And if worst comes to worst... You can always crash at my place.”  
Crowley let a small puff of breath out of his nose. “And do what? Help you with your homework?”  
“I was thinking more along the lines of watching stupid movies and eating a lot of ice cream. But now that you're bringing it up, I know a biology student that wants to hold a presentation on snakes. I could tell her I happen to know one.”  
“Is that a threat?” Crowley pressed.  
“Oh, please. If I wanted to threaten you, I'd tell you I'd hide my collection of _Golden Girl_s DVDs.”

Crowley scoffed. “Hey, I'm supposed to be the demon.”  
“I gotta tell you, you're not very good at it.”  
“You take that back!”

“Just telling the truth,” Nate smirked. “And I guess...”

His voice went quiet. “I guess I should start doing that, too.”  
“You've been running from her, haven't you?” Crowley said. “Your mum?”  
Nate hid his face in his hood and nodded nearly imperceptibly.

“Maybe I should start with the scar,” Nate said quietly. “Above my eyebrow. It was a, uhm, dance accident. Ballet. That's what my mum used to do, and I looked up to her so much. We would dance together then. I don't... I don't like to think about it. I haven't danced ballet in a very long time.”

“Why not?” Crowley seemed genuinely interested.  
“Oh... I think... it just made me think of her. Of who she used to be. I think, for a while, I could only handle the worst of it if I didn't remember the best. Because my mum and I… we used to be best friends. I used to tell her everything. I never had many friends, but I always had her. Then... it all fell apart. I got scared.”

“Because your dad left?” Crowley said carefully.

“Fuck, my dad. He just…he yelled a lot. Things like 'grow up' and 'play a real sport', but in a voice like thunder. Like he's giving you advice, but you know that he means it. He loved pretending like he loved us. But, you know, everyone drops the act at some point.”

“You haven't heard from him since?”  
Nate shook his head. “No. I don't think I want to. I can't forgive someone who's not even sorry. It just…it changed me. He leaves, and three years later I'm _that guy _in a group presentation. I felt cheated by the world. Things got pretty bad... I gave up on it all. On things getting better. On myself. On her. That's the worst part: I walked out on her.”

Nate looked at Crowley, and it was nice to have someone just listening to all these things that Nate had kept inside of himself for so long. He'd felt so helpless, so sad. Now all he could feel was guilt. But Crowley looked at him like he understood, so Nate kept talking.

“I gotta stop whining about the world being unfair and accept that it's on me. Not all on me, maybe, but enough of it.”  
“Only you can change that,” Crowley said softly. “Only you, but you can.”

“I think I'm starting to get that. I know it sounds ironic, but spending so much time with a demon makes me feel... human, again.” Nate took a breath and leaned back on the couch. “I'm going to go back there and face her. I'll pick myself up again. And I won't give up so easily this time 'round.”  
“I'll do the same,” Crowley said. “We have a deal, then? No more running?”  
“No more running.”  
Nate shook off the hood of his sweater. “I did it once. After he left. Just... just in case,” he said.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I prayed. Just a little, though. I got pretty angry half-way through. Didn't really expect an answer. If not because She's not real, then because I insulted her so hard.” Nate laughed softly.  
“Yeah, tell me about it.”  
“I guess, what I'm trying to say is... you're kind of like my guardian a-”  
“Don't you dare!” Crowley interrupted.  
“My – guardian demon.”  
“Eh. I'll take it,” Crowley conceded.

They sat quietly for a while. Nate felt strangely hopeful.

“Guess I should leave and go see him now,” Crowley said. “No more procrastinating.”  
“It's pretty late.”  
“Oh, he doesn't sleep.”

“Right.”

“Will Mrs. Brown be alright without me?” Crowley looked over to where the potted plant no longer drooped.  
Nate knew he was not just talking about his plant.

“She'll be fine,” Nate said and tried to smile. “I know how to take care of her now.”

“Right,” Crowley said. “Then I think it's time I faced the truth. Whatever that is.”  
He stood up and walked to the door.

“I, uhm,” Nate said, “I tried pot for the first time two years ago -”  
“It's not a dream, kid,” Crowley said.

He opened the door, then paused.

“Oh, and the next time you want to see a demon?” he said.  
“Yeah?”  
“Please just call.” Crowley held up his phone and jiggled it a little for effect.

“Okay.”

Then he was gone. But it was okay. He could manage on his own.

The next day, the first thing Nate did was to take the bus to visit his mum. He opened the front door and then strode with purpose. When he entered the living room, he was surprised to find that the mess was gone. His mum was sitting on the couch. She'd put on a clean T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She looked much better than she had just yesterday.  
“Honey,” she blurted out. “I didn't expect you to come back so soon.”  
Nate wrung his hands. “I wanted to apologize. For yesterday. For the whole last year.”

“It's okay, honey,” she said softly.

“I walked out on you,” Nate said. “Doesn't that make you angry?”

“It's not like I can blame you,” she laughed.  
“I'm – I'm sorry. I tried not to be like him. But, you know, apples falling from tress and all that shit.”  
“Oh, sweetheart. You could never be like him.”  
She stood up and stepped towards him.

“I've let you down these past three years,” she said. “And I'm really, really sorry. You were right. You were right, because I'm – not alright. And I haven't tried enough.”

Nate could feel the voice crack before it happened. “I – I should have been there for you.”  
“You were just a kid. We can't change the past now, honey. But we can try to be better.”

“You can say it then? The truth?”  
“Honey.”  
“How are you?” Nate asked.  
“I'm doing pretty shit, thanks for asking,” she said and smiled when he sputtered.

“Mum!” he said, laughing even though he was on the verge of tears.

“And you were right,” she said. “I do need help. I've made an appointment with a therapist for next week.”  
“That – that's great,” Nate said and suddenly felt himself crying.

“I'm gonna be okay,” she said.

She put her arms around him and pressed him to her chest like when he was a little kid. He was taller than her now. And, by some demonic miracle, perhaps, slow classical music started playing then. His mum looked at him in surprise, but he just smiled.

“Care for a dance?” he said.

She nodded, and they kept holding each other, moving back and forth a little. He leaned back and faced her. He looked at her in awe; suddenly, he could see her again. She looked a far cry from the way she used to. Her hair was still unkempt and greasy, there were still dark circles under her eyes and they were more swaying than dancing, but she was undoubtedly his mum. There was a smile on her face. A real one. And that's how he knew, they'd get there. Someday.  
__________________________________________________________________________________

  
Crowley stood in front of the bookshop but couldn't quite bring himself to knock. He felt like however he would leave this place again, everything would be different. What did he have to lose? Oh, just everything. What did he have to gain? _Everything._

Suddenly, the door opened and Crowley blinked.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed. “I've missed you.”  
“Oh,” Crowley said, stunned.

“You silly serpent,” Aziraphale said. “Come in, come in. Why did you teleport yourself in the middle of a conversation? It was quite rude, I must say.”

“I – I didn't – Uhm,” Crowley spluttered.

He sat on Aziraphale's couch. He started fidgeting.

“You, uh,” Aziraphale said and looked down. “You knew what I was going to tell you, didn't you?”  
Crowley felt a flash of heat run through him, though he couldn’t tell if it was shame or sadness or fear.  
“I... I had a hunch.”  
“I'm terribly sorry, Crowley. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. You – you didn't need to leave, much less _teleport_. I probably just, how'd you say, got the wrong idea.”

“It's fine. I just wanted to say,” Crowley quavered, “whatever it is you wanted to tell me, it's okay. I'll back off. Just don't shut me out completely.”

He removed his sunglasses.  
“What in the h-heavens are you talking about?” Aziraphale stammered. “I would never do that to you! I do hope you know that... you're my only friend, really.”  
“And you're my only – no, wait, actually, I made a friend this week.”  
Aziraphale smiled. “Oh, really, dear? Who is it?”  
Though Crowley did want to talk about the insane week he’d had, he instead rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and said, “No, no, I'll tell you about it later. We can't keep avoiding this.”  
“Well,” Aziraphale said. “I was hoping you didn't want to.”  
Crowley swallowed and tried to look brave. “Don't worry, angel. Just tell me what I did wrong and I'll try to fix it.”  
“You did nothing wrong, dear,” Aziraphale sighed. “It's just, you see... You've been spending quite a lot of time at the book shop lately.”  
Crowley felt a knot slowly working itself into his stomach. He desperately wanted tater tots. “I know, and I'm sorry. I'll try to cut back.”  
“That's really not what I meant. I meant to say that... we're so close, now that Heaven and Hell aren't watching. But somehow it still... feels like not enough.” Crowley looked up to see Aziraphale blushing heavily.

“Not enough?” Crowley repeated, sounding strangled.

The angel’s eyes were pleading. “I thought you knew, Crowley.”  
“Me? I don't – I've never – never known anything – I know nothing-” Crowley spluttered.  
“I'm, uhm, I'm in love with you,” Aziraphale confessed. “You know? Like humans?”  
Crowley made a strangled noise.

“Like the ones in that Shakespeare play you hated? _Romeo and Juliet_?”

Crowley’s mouth opened and closed like that of a fish.

“Say something, dear.”  
Crowley rubbed at his snake tattoo. “I-I mean-Myself as well, with you.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale said.  
“'s not a tragic love story like those teenagers Shakespeare wrote after all, then,” Crowley said and smiled, mostly to himself.

“Maybe not,” Aziraphale said. Crowley reached across the couch to take his hand.

“Still prefer the funny ones,” Crowley mumbled, and Aziraphale laughed.  
They spent the rest of the night sharing quiet whispers.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said when the first rays of suns started to shine in through the window. “I forgot! There's something I need to show you.”  
He shuffled into the back room and came back with a green leafed plant.

“You won't believe this, Crowley. A customer just left this plant here, as if I'm equipped to take care of a plant. I was so concerned, but now that you're here, you'll take it in, right?”  
“I can't even, angel,” Crowley smirked.

“You can't even what?” Aziraphale asked seriously.  
“I can't e- you know what? Never mind. Of course I'll take the plant.”

Crowley leaned forward to examine it. It had a few stops at the edges of the leaves. It didn't have any blossoms yet, but Crowley was sure it would flourish with time.

Sometimes all it needs is a nudge in the right direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fanfiction! Thank you so much for reading it :)

**Author's Note:**

> Did I write a self-indulgent 21k fanfiction that is essentially me being one of Crowley's plants being yelled at to grow better? Heck yeah I did!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, I'll upload a new chapter every day.
> 
> I appreciate every comment and kudos :)  
Also have a great day!


End file.
